My Stolen Planet

Oppressed by governmental restrictions that prevent her human rights, movement and autonomy, an Iranian filmmaker is forced to emigrate “inwards” and finds freedom in recording herself dancing and singing at home as an act of resistance. Using a personal diary-style narrative, Farah Sharifi traces her birth in post-revolution Iran to the Woman, Life, Freedom movement and her precious collection of vintage Super-8 films that capture a fleeting period of freedom in Iran when men and women danced together and enjoyed carefree moments of joy. She blends her found-film archive of the past with footage of the present, which she refers to as “my planet,” to create an alternate history of Iran. When documentary filmmakers are arrested in Iran in 2022, and her own collection of joyful film clips is seized by the police while she is in Germany on an artist residency, she must face the possibility of never returning to Iran. “Sometimes we lose our lives for recording in the battle of memory and forgetting.”