Shokouk: A Cosmicomedy in Four Acts

The film begins and ends with the sound of crickets and a view of a cosmodrome. Its circular form and the four-act structure, playfully promised by the title, are not closed frames. They elicit instead the same thrill of surprise you might feel from a poem fixing its vivid flight into stanzas. Like other staggering works by Pejvak (the long-term collaboration between Kalmenson and Akhbari), Shokouk intersects the political and mythical into a complex temporal weave. This expansive approach also uncovers delicate depths; an immensity occasionally pierced by common perceptions of time and space – like that of cosmonaut Krikalev, who, after being stranded in space while the USSR collapsed, expressed awe, above all, at Earth’s recurring snow and blossom. (Ilinca Vânău)

Pejvak is an ongoing collaboration between Rouzbeh Akhbari (Tehran, Iran 1992) and Felix Kalmenson (Saint Petersburg, Russia 1987). Their films have screened in numerous international film festivals including at São Paulo International Film Festival, Doclisboa, Sharjah Film Platform, and Kasseler Dokfest, winning awards including the Prix George at Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, 2020. Their work has been exhibited at museums and galleries internationally including; MAC VAL (Paris), Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), M HKA (Antwerp), Z33 (Hasselt) and Si Shang Art Museum (Beijing).

Gamodi (2023), This World Does Not Fit Into My Eyes (2023), Shokouk (2023), Perturbation (2021), Dear Elnaz: In Memory of PS752 (2020), Threshold (2020), A Passage (2019), Weak Enough to Hear (2019), Prizes from Fairyland (2018), A Mountain That Opens Like a Door and Closes Like a Mountain (2017), 43 (2016), A House of Skin (2016).