By Kira Logan
Poetry and art are lifelines for people experiencing devastating tragedies, says film producer and director Persis Karim.
“It’s a really important thing to not overlook how people feel,” Karim said in a recent discussion after her film screening, The Dawn is Too Far, hosted by UC Santa Barbara’s Center for Middle East Studies.
Karim focused on stories of students, refugees and exiles, to create a film that details the experiences of Iranian American immigrants from the time of the 1979 Iranian Revolution to their current life in the Bay Area. The film highlights artists and people who channel their culture through different creative outlets — artists, singers, painters, chefs, and theater directors.
Though they might have immigrated to America in different years and lead completely different lives, one thing unites them all: the intersection of art and culture.
“I wanted mostly to capture the visual aspects [of the culture],” Karim said. “And I thought them to be emblematic.”
The film first introduces Parviz Shokat, who immigrated to America in the 1970s. He found his passion in activism, working closely with the Black Panthers in the Bay Area during the 1970s. Shokat said that during his time of activism, he went to prison six times.
“We really thought we were changing the world,” Shokat said, moved to tears by his memories.
Mokhtar Paki, who immigrated in the 1970s, began expressing his feelings about the Iranian Revolution through art. He primarily paints horses, because they remind him of his escape from Iran to America.
Iranian immigrant artist Mokhtar Paki explains his connection to Iranian culture in a documentary film recebtkt screened by UCSB’s Center for Middle East Studies.
“Escaping was, on average, very dangerous,” Paki says in the film. He describes dangerously riding on horseback throughout the night with his newborn child, when he and his son both got hurt on the path. “And my story is one of the safest.”
Director Karim also infused the film with Iranian history and culture, alongside the personal narratives, for example explaining Shab-e Yalda, which is the longest night of the year, when Iranians ward off negative energy and instead let in positive energy for the new year.
Bella Warda, an Iranian immigrant and founding member of the Darvag Theater Company, described mixing theater and activism.
“We come to light with the arts,” Warda says in the film. “We want to keep the culture alive with our grandchildren.”
Another Iranian exile profiled by Karim was Hanif Sharif, who was interviewed after opening his regional Iranian restaurant in San Francisco.
“Food is much easier to understand than photography or literature, and might be able to serve as the start of a cultural bridge between Iranians and Americans,” Sadr said.
Iranian citizens in 2017 protesting in Tehran against a United States Executive Order banning Muslims from entering the United States. Persis Karim’s film, The Dawn is Too Far, was screened by the UCSB Center for Middle East Studies. It focuses on Iranians in the U.S. since the 1979 Iran Revolution.
Chahar Shanbeh Suri, or the ‘Festival of Fire,’ was featured in the film as families created bonfires and attended a cultural fair to celebrate the arrival of the spring season. Festivities usually take place in the evening as people create bonfires to jump over. The jump signals leaving bad energy in the past and channeling good energy for the upcoming season.
Filmmaker Karim also included a section about 9/11, and how Iranians and Arabs from the region faced a rise in hate crimes following the terrorist attack.
Karim said her goal was not just to introduce Iranian history to her audience, but to also depict American history and show how the two interact.
“I wanted to show how social movements and political movements inform each other,” she said. “It’s the idea that people were shaped through big historical events and were connected to each other to instead shape history.”
Following the screening, Karim spoke about media coverage of the ongoing war in the Middle East.
“Unfortunately, people don’t care about Iran until there’s a crisis,” she said.
Calling media sources ‘repulsive,’ Karim stressed that an absence of personal human stories in media coverage makes it easier to dehumanize people. “There’s an apprehension about letting your guard down when you’ve been continually portrayed in the news a certain way,” Karim said.
She said her goal was to share a wealth of memory, leaving the audience with an abundance of cultural knowledge and personal stories to reflect upon. “It’s important that people know a longer arch of history,” she said.
The film’s last frame before its end, reads “In memory for those we have lost, and the stories yet to be told.”
Kira Logan is a third-year UC Santa Barbara student majoring in English. She is a Web and Social Media Intern for the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts.