Filmmaker Statement

I’m a London born director of Iranian origin. In 2021, I was awarded a BAFTA Prince William Scholarship to study MA TV Journalism. Upon graduating I became a One World Media Fellow and received funding to make “Vida”, my first documentary out of university.  The topic of the film is one that I’m personally connected to. I came to know Vida through the Iran Tribunal foundation where I volunteered as a legal clerk in 2014. The organisation aims to bring to light the mass killing of political prisoner’s which took place in Iran throughout the 1980’s. My parents left Iran as asylum seekers around the same time Vida was forced to flee the country, since my father was also a marxist political activist and it was unsafe for him to stay. I became interested in the struggle of the Iranian community to gain recognition of the crimes committed against activists during the 1980’s because of my own family's lucky escape.