Rouzbeh Akhbari

A video and installation project produced in Agarak and Meghri. The project tackles the political economy and social ecology of border infrastructures in Southern Armenia. By focusing on two significant events that illustrate the dominant political shifts in the region, ‘A Passage’ looks at how processes of rapid militarization and neoliberalization have restructured these borders.

An Armenian film director location scouts for an upcoming film on the history of the movement of ideas and contagion along the ancient trade networks which connected the historic Armenian capital of Ani to the world. Along the way he encounters the complex geopolitical realities which impact the region.

A transhistorical hybrid documentary that traces a polyphony of characters, sites and encounters related to infrastructures of space travel and cosmic imaginaries. Following a vertiginous narrative connecting various cosmic machinations from the 12th century Persianate world to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in the present moment, the film weaves historical facts and archival fabulations, and questions our common perceptions of time and space.

Giving water and land voice, this video imagines activities along the Euphrates River over the span of a day. The storyline subtly references the murder of Ahmed Jabbar Kareem Ali, a 15-year-old boy drowned by British troops in 2003 after accused of looting in one of the tributaries of the Euphrates in Southern Iraq called Shatt al-Basra. His fictional ghost anchors the narrative by raising questions about power manifested by those who control access to the river and land, its resources and history.

Nasira, a partially-sighted, formerly famous singer, works as a janitor at the Solar Institute in Parkent. Despondent, she retreats more and more into recollections of her past.

Between the Caspian Sea and the Strait of Hormuz, through the reanimation of archives and documentary observation, a frenetic plunge into the parallel economies of a region shaped by imperial ambitions and survival instincts.

Like a trauma therapist, the camera accompanies Javad Soleimani whose wife, Elnaz Nabiyi, was killed aboard flight PS752 after missile attacks by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Javad's personal and political memories are interwoven as the camera crew and his friends follow him through the complex labyrinth of healing and mourning. Javad's fury and sorrow is gradually geared towards a loud cry for justice.