Maryam Tafakory Wins 2024 Film London Jarman Award
Maryam Tafakory. Courtesy of The Flaherty. Photo: Abby Lord.
Actor Rupert Everett presented Maryam Tafakory with the £10,000 2024 Film London Jarman Award at the Soho Hotel last night.
Inspired by filmmaker Derek Jarman, the Award recognises British-based artists’ experimentation, imagination, and innovation in the realm of moving image.
Tafakory, who was born and raised in Iran but now lives in the U.K., collages found footage with her own recordings to explore themes such as intimacy and expression in post-Revolutionary Iran.
Her works include: the video essay Irani Bag (2020), which sees the handbag as a stand-in for human touch; Nazarbazi (2022), on representations of love and desire in Iranian cinema; Mast-del (2023), a necessarily oblique portrayal of a lesbian relationship; and Razeh-Del (2024) which tells the story of Iran’s first women’s magazine, Zan.
On behalf of the jury, Matthew Barrington, Barbican’s Cinema Curator, said Tafakory’s films ‘navigate historical and personal traumas with remarkable sensitivity, reflecting on the intersections of Iranian cultural identity and individual struggles. Tafakory’s innovative blend of reality and fiction through visual poetry, symbolism and archival compilation firmly establishes her as a worthy winner of the Jarman Award, showcasing an artistic voice that is both profound and essential.’
The other nominees for this year’s award are Larry Achiampong, Maeve Brennan, Melanie Manchot, Rosalind Nashashibi, and Sin Wai Kin.
Films by all six nominees will be screened on a loop at the Whitechapel Gallery from 11:30am to 5:30pm on Saturday 30 November and Sunday 1 December. —[O]
Main image: Maryam Tafakory. Courtesy of The Flaherty. Photo: Abby Lord.
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