As part of the exhibition It Goes Without Saying, Extra City presents I For Iran (2014 original title: I Comme Iran) by Sanaz Azari on Friday 30 January. In this film, Azari weaves language, memory, and history into a personal yet layered reflection. The first screening takes place at 6 pm in the choir space and is followed by a conversation on the film and its themes with artist Mashid Mohadjerin and Antony Hudek, Artistic Coordinator of Extra City.
As the evening coincides with BORGER Nocturne, the film will also be screened at 8 pm and 9 pm.
Sanaz Azari — I For Iran (2014, 50’)
Persian with English subtitles
Behind the closed doors of a classroom in Brussels, filmmaker Sanaz Azari learns to read and write in her mother tongue, Persian, using a textbook dating back to the Islamic Revolution. What begins as a language lesson gradually unfolds into a reflection on history, culture, and identity. The didactic exercises give way to a poetic visual collage that questions notions of freedom and probes the meaning of revolution.
In I For Iran, language functions as a vessel for memory, ideology, and personal history — themes that resonate closely with It Goes Without Saying, which explores the limits and possibilities of language, translation, and transmission.
The programme
6:00 pm: 1st screening followed by a conversation with Mashid Mohadjerin and Antony Hudek
8:00 pm: 2nd screening
9:00 pm: 3rd screening
About Sanaz Azari
Sanaz Azari (b. 1981, Isfahan) grew up in Brussels. After studying photography and stage design at La Cambre (ENSAV), she worked on scenography and urban installations before directing her first documentary, Salaam Isfahan (2010). Her films include I For Iran (2014), Backstage Action (2018), and Except the Past (2025). Azari favours pre-arranged set-ups and enclosed spaces, creating cinematic situations that blend the political and the poetic.
About Mashid Mohadjerin
Mashid Mohadjerin (b. 1976, Tehran) is a visual artist, storyteller and lecturer based in Belgium. She holds a PhD in the Arts from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp and is the author of three books, most recently Riding in Silence & the Crying Dervish (2025), a meditative journey through family history, migration and reflections on masculinity. Her work has been recognised with international awards, including the 1st Prize for Contemporary Issues at World Press Photo and the Author’s Book Award at Les Rencontres d’Arles. Her most recent solo exhibition took place at FOMU, Antwerp, in 2025.
