Cinema Beyond Borders:

4-Day Seminar with DFFB

Amir Naderi, one of the singular voices of transnational cinema, approaches filmmaking as an act of searching through images, memory, and movement. Drawing on decades of narrative and documentary work across cultures and geographies, he invites seminar participants to reflect on cinema as a form of personal expression, and how this leads to the development of a personal cinematic language. At the core of the seminar are shared film analyses and exchange, with a focus on authenticity, lived experience, and the emergence of a distinct cinematic voice.

The seminar will be held with students of the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin and Berlin-based transnational filmmakers, with the kind support of the DFFB and Goethe-Institut in Exile. (Afsun Moshiry)

We are offering two places in the Amir Naderi seminar to Berlin-based transnational filmmakers. Please complete the form until 22 of January to apply. The selected participants will be notified by January 26.

Initiated by Afsun Moshiry, with the generous guidance and support of Amir Naderi.

Amir Naderi began his career in the 1970s, a pivotal period in Iranian cinema, where his raw portrayals of everyday urban life introduced a lasting cinematic language across both fiction and documentary forms. Harmonica (1974) premiered at the Venice Film Festival, marking his first international recognition, followed in the 1980s by The Runner (1984) and Water, Wind, Dust (1989), films that brought Iranian cinema broad international visibility. The Runner premiered at the Locarno Film Festival and established Naderi as a major voice in world cinema. After relocating to the United States in the early 1990s, he continued working independently, with films at major festivals including Venice, Cannes, Toronto, and Busan, and his work presented in retrospectives at institutions such as Film at Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art, the Centre Pompidou, and the National Museum of Cinema Turin.

Afsun Moshiry is a film curator, programmer, and creative producer born in Shiraz and raised in Mannheim, based in Berlin. She is part of the Berlinale Forum team, works as a producer at Road River Films, and serves as artistic director of Interfilm's Script Pitch & Lab. Previously, she curated film programs for Berliner Festspiele and Akademie der Künste, and was a permanent member of the selection committee at Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival, where she also headed Dokfest Campus. She is currently working on research projects on Iranian cinema, including Cinema-ye Azad.