Rojin Shafiei

“There…” refers to an unknown country which the protagonist calls home. A borderless land with no features and nothing but soil. There is no architecture in this home, neither physically nor spiritually.

The soil represents an entity that embodies the potential for growth. It refers to the country, Iran; a place of multi-faceted possibilities.

In Persian literature, Iran is a feminine name and still many people are named Iran; a motherland which gives birth, wherein growth takes place. On Wikipedia, the most basic search on the internet, it states “a country is a distinct territorial body or political entity (i.e. a nation). It is often referred to as the land of an individual's birth, residence or citizenship.” The short film draws upon the question whether the protagonist truly considers herself as the resident or citizen of that unknown land?

In order to be physically in this country, the protagonist is forced by the interviewer to be dishonest and doubt her thoughts. At the end, it is she who has to leave that land and carries “THERE” with herself.

Biography: 

Rojin Shafiei (b.1993)  is an Iranian interdisciplinary artist/filmmaker living and working in Toronto. In her works, art is a vehicle for the translation of cultural messages and is used to present diverse feminine subjectivities. She presents these themes both through a literal documentary style and as symbols. Rojin received her BFA in Intermedia from Concordia University in 2017 and currently, she is an MFA candidate in Film Production at York University.  She has screened her work internationally in various festivals such as les Rendez-Vous du Cinéma Québécois (Canada), Festival International de Vidéo de Casablanca (Morocco), Limited Access Video Festival (Tehran) and Instant Vidéo Numériques et Poétiques (France). In 2019 she was the Venice Lands Art Prize candidate in Treviso, Italy and she won the grand prize of Startupfest/Artupfest section in July 2018 for her piece "I wait for the time."