Video essay

21:6 Full HD color with sound, GER, IR, 2022 - 19:50'

Languages: English, Farsi, subtitles in German, English, Farsi

DoP: Diana Sanchez, Rosh Zeeba

With: Parichehr Bijani, Babak Radmehr, Family Sharif, keos.club, Xenia Ende, Rosh Zeeba

Edit, Art Direction: Rosh Zeeba

Sound: Edis Ludwig

In Roya, Farsi for dream or vision, Zeeba uses video footage from their first trip back to Iran after leaving the country in the 1990s. The film revisits a road trip from Isfahan to Sari, where dream, memory, and reality blend into a multi-layered narrative that reflects on the politics of image production. Zeeba weaves a semi-documentary, semi-fictional narrative that delves into themes of belonging and upheaval through desires and fragmented self-conceptions, while addressing the orientalist gaze of Western audiences
„How does it feel to give in - to give in to not understanding? I was on the road from Isfahan to Sari. I felt dissociated but also connected Always in-between worlds driving through opaque landscapes. I stayed in disguise and gave in to mixing and weaving the realms of memory, dream and irl.“