Azar Saiyar’s Monument of Distance (2018) is included in the screening programme “East from West“, curated by Ingel Vaikla and previously screened during Tallinn Photomonth 2019. The online screening takes place on Wednesday, December 2 at 19:30 and is hosted by Beursschouwburg, Belgium.
In Monument of Distance, Googoosh, a popular and loved iranian-azerbaijani singer, performs a version of the song Ayrılıq – Separation. The performance is from 1970s television show and it has been copied several times from one videotape to another. Ayrılıq could be a love song but it is told that composer Ali Salimi (who had migrated from Soviet Azerbaijan to Iran and left behind his home and loved ones) wanted to make music about his sense of longing.
Azar Saiyar is a Helsinki-based filmmaker and visual artist. She often uses archive materials and plays with images and words of collective memory to look towards ways of looking, remembering and storytelling. Her films have been screened at international film and media art festivals, galleries, exhibitions, museums and broadcast on television.
East from West online screening, December 2 2020, Beursschouwburg
More information: Beursschouwburg