I’ve long been fascinated by the concept of exile and the experience of living between places. Growing up, I sought to better understand the reasons my family left Iran around the time of the 1979 Islamic revolution and documented their experiences in my first feature film, Khaneh Ma: These Places We Call Home. Shot over three months in various cities throughout Iran, Khaneh Ma is one of several projects I have independently produced and directed in the last fifteen years that aims to shed light on aspects of daily life in the Middle East through a humanistic lens, all the while grappling with ongoing questions of how to define home.
My latest project, Migrant Mothers of Syria, is an interactive documentary that seeks to bring the Syrian refugee crisis out of the realm of numbers and statistics and engage audiences with personal stories about life in-between places – told from the POV of mothers whose lives have been uprooted by conflict. Inspired by the 1936 photograph, Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange, the project explores themes of exile and migration through a gendered lens that challenges users to think about its participants as mothers first and refugees second. In doing so, the project seeks to bridge the user’s experiences with those of the participants—prompting a reflection on migration as a shared human condition that is not confined to any given culture, race and religion but that ultimately affects us all.
Similar to the original Migrant Mother, which captured the era in which it was created so powerfully, I view this project as a sort of time capsule. Only this time capsule moves beyond the realm of the static photographic image. It speaks to a moment in history unlike anything we’ve witnessed in recent years and that will affect generations to come. It is one that lives online, that is interactive, that can be shared and effectively build into a larger movement, the more users engage with it. Thus, I believe that Migrant Mothers of Syria represents the beginning of a larger project that aims to document the reality of the times we are living in while connecting us to our past and propelling us towards our future.
My latest project, Migrant Mothers of Syria, is an interactive documentary that seeks to bring the Syrian refugee crisis out of the realm of numbers and statistics and engage audiences with personal stories about life in-between places – told from the POV of mothers whose lives have been uprooted by conflict. Inspired by the 1936 photograph, Migrant Mother by Dorothea Lange, the project explores themes of exile and migration through a gendered lens that challenges users to think about its participants as mothers first and refugees second. In doing so, the project seeks to bridge the user’s experiences with those of the participants—prompting a reflection on migration as a shared human condition that is not confined to any given culture, race and religion but that ultimately affects us all.
Similar to the original Migrant Mother, which captured the era in which it was created so powerfully, I view this project as a sort of time capsule. Only this time capsule moves beyond the realm of the static photographic image. It speaks to a moment in history unlike anything we’ve witnessed in recent years and that will affect generations to come. It is one that lives online, that is interactive, that can be shared and effectively build into a larger movement, the more users engage with it. Thus, I believe that Migrant Mothers of Syria represents the beginning of a larger project that aims to document the reality of the times we are living in while connecting us to our past and propelling us towards our future.
Anna Fahr is an Iranian-Canadian Writer/Director/Producer whose work focuses on the contemporary Middle East and its diaspora. Her last dramatic short, Transit Game, screened in more than fifty international festivals, winning awards in Berlin, Florence and San Francisco. She is an alumna of the TIFF Talent Lab and the Film Independent’s Screenwriting Lab.
Anna holds an MFA in Screenwriting from Hollins University and an MA in Film and Middle Eastern Studies from NYU.
Anna holds an MFA in Screenwriting from Hollins University and an MA in Film and Middle Eastern Studies from NYU.