Land of Dreams | Shirin Neshat, Soja Azari, Robin Barlett, Christopher McDonald, Michael Brook

thank you again for coming out to the second in our two Night series devoted to the feature films directed by world-renowned visual artist sherina shot and her co-director shoja Azari tonight we're thrilled to be presenting the Los Angeles theatrical premiere of their latest film land of dreams we're especially honored to have Serena shot here with us in person we are also honored to have so many of her collaborators on the film with us as well including co-director and screenwriter shoja Azari composer Michael Brooke and stars Robin Bartlett and Christopher McDonald all of them will be joining me on stage for post screening conversation so please stick around for that now I'd like to uh ask a true friend of the archive to come up and help us welcome sherina shot back to the Billy Wilder theater a member of the archive Board of advisors markamine is the CEO of sabini films through which he has produced a diverse slate of features including The Prince and Me Peaceful Warrior and his directorial debut Emperor which was nominated for two NAACP image Awards including outstanding independent Motion Picture among his many other credits are Eve's Bayou and Frida which was nominated for five Oscars in one two he holds a ba degree in economics from the University of Kansas and an MBA from UCLA and he is an executive producer on land of dreams there's so much here we do with the wild that we could not do with Mark so please help me welcome him to the stage right now [Applause] surprise hi everyone first thank you for coming to see this fantastic movie um I've known Shirin for a long time when she asked me to get involved with this film as executive producer it was really an honor and it was a fantastic trip culminating with the premiere of movie at Venice Film Festival which it was really well received fantastically received as well as all the fun at the Venezuelan Festival I want to thank Paul for such a great introduction uh I don't know if I deserve all that but it was really really appreciate archives and archives has been really an amazing supporter of the Iranian Cinema for the past 20 or 30 years I lost count um anyway I just want to shooting to come up here introduce the movie and then we can start the movie thank you [Applause] good evening so many of you are here tonight um I just happy that you choose to spend the evening with us um I can't start without thanking Paul Malcolm from UCLA and alireza ardakani Mr Rosie from Parham Foundation to to have the screenings of my work organized um also the Hammer Museum is obviously one of my favorites museums in the world who's the co-director and co-writer of the film is here and you will be joining me um thank you soja um I just have to say that um it gives me the chills that we're here tonight um in Los Angeles the largest population of Iranians living outside of Iran on the eve of a major protests and during this incredible extraordinary Uprising uh happening in Iran when our women are busy and making the first female revolution in the world um [Applause] um and I think um like all of you Iranians in this room um our life has changed in the last two weeks ever since the murder of Masa amini it's really difficult to focus on anything else and so our work and career have taken aback seat to support all those young people men and women who are risking their lives so all of us will see a more better future and experience freedom and democracy finally so we owe that to them and um it's been too long that all of us so many of us I would say have lives in the state of fear whether we live inside or outside of Iran and we have been so divided so deeply divided and and the idea that dream of finally this country will be reunited and that finally we won't be afraid and we will be able to go home um it's a dream that I think everyone lives in inside of every one of us and I'm there tomorrow with you in the protest and so it's shoja and I just want to say um we're in total solidarity with our young people in Iran um talking about dreams um this film it's all about dreams and nightmares and it's not just about America it is about dreams of us as Iranian immigrants in the U.S that are so conflicted between sometimes very difficult past a very turbulent and violent past and yet living in a present time in a country that we don't quite um connect to but through dreams and and through the Journey of this woman collecting dreams we find that dreams cross all borders and and that's the beauty of it um this film it's very surrealistic so I don't want you to expect a very realistic film as I'm a visual artist and and and the film will go in between dream and reality so there is no expectation of believability um the film is basically following the Journey of a young Iranian woman living in the U.S and and I think it echoes my own experience as I landed in Los Angeles at the age of 17 on my own and and felt somehow lost and found in this country um the film script was co-written with Shojo azeri and Jean-Claude carrier the wonderful legendary scriptwriter who unfortunately passed away before this film was finished the film was shot in New Mexico because to many of us Iranians the state of New Mexico the desert landscape so nostalgically resembled Iran so we decided as mostly Iranian team to shoot in Iran um and in Iran I would say also slip New Mexico um I'm a little nervous as you can imagine but I'm also really happy that some of our La based our artists and collabs leaders are here Christopher McDonald Robin Bartlett I think is in the house Ali Klein where art issues are costume designer Rebecca Comerford we have of course Mark I mean that executive produced this film and sold try and that is our producer who the work with the film would not have been possible without him also Michael Brooke the composer of the film will join us there's numerous people in this house in this room between the field of art world to art community that I won't name you one by one you create the community I belong to and thank you for honoring me with your presence and I sincerely hope you enjoyed the film and if you don't forgive me thank you [Applause] thank you all for joining us here it's real an honor to have so many amazing people on stage with us here tonight um I feel like there's so many different ways that we can enter into this film this amazing film that you've made but I wanted to sort of start by just noting that this land of dreams that we saw tonight is not just this film it was an exhibition that opened in 2021 at the Gladstone gallery that involved two video pieces that Sheila Bond also starred in but also about over a hundred portraits of people who had interviewed in New Mexico about their dreams that you incorporated into this exhibit so I wanted to start with this question when does the full form of a project like this come to you at the beginning does it emerge over time and when do you decide I need to take this into a different medium I need to take this in a different direction how does the piece become at the whole well first of all I just want to say thank you for watching this film and thank you guys for joining me and shoja um you know I I'm a visual artist mainly a photographer and video artist but I'm really interested in cinema and storytelling but the idea of land of dreams was to create a kind of a portrait of America a portrait of a Nation from the perspective of an Iranian immigrant so I went to New Mexico and photographed about 200 people from different ethnic backgrounds from Native Americans to Hispanic to lots of lower income to you know many different cities and my interest was to really ultimately create a room a tapestry of images of Americans faces that represented the kind of diversity that is the identity of this tree and so we chose New Mexico as a place that is the poorest state in America but is also one of the most diverse states in America in terms of its constituents and and so really the land of dreams for me was a portrait of America in three different forms um in in three different languages but all from the perspective of an Iranian immigrant um and and so for me it was the first time ever to do a project that collapses in three very different mediums uh and uh yeah so today we have a double Channel projection that is about 20 minutes long um with Sheila land and then this film and the photographs I know that um collaboration has always been a big part of your your practice you have a group of of collaborators and partners you work with for many many years including shoja and your your cinematographer tonight guys in ibrahimian um can you talk this if it was for him can you I'm going to throw it to both of you and then you can collaborate on the answer how does this collaborative process work showed you and and sharing how do you work together um as co-directors on a film like this oh we don't it's very difficult she's really she puts you through a lot of torture but it's fun too I mean I love a masochist in nature so I like it oh but she comes with these crazy ideas and then someone has to put sense into it so that's what I do tell us what really happens now well okay so this is the this is your first film of three feature films that turns towards America and really explores this country that you've lived in for many decades and I have to say you've you've in in doing so you've brought some really iconic American faces and casts to the screen including two we have up tonight so as new collaborators um Robin and Christopher in is part of um Sheeran's practice what let's start with Robin Robin what Drew you to this this project and and what was your first sort of take on on your on your your role in it I was just fascinated by the script that I read and um did I do a taped audition for you no you saw something else I forget yeah um but and then I saw um women without men and I said well I have to work with these people because it's that there's also another fantastic film that they made so um when we got there uh you know I I understood what the scene was about but I didn't really understand who my character was and that for some reason on the first on the day of shooting I I decided that she had um early onset Alzheimer's and that kind of gave me the way in so it's still a very powerful performance I mean it's it's really draws us right into that character and I'm curious I want to ask Christopher this too so I was and Shireen jump in if you'd like to shireen's work as a filmmaker straddles in a way defies the categories between the gallery in the art gallery and the theater exhibition and you know is what is I think land of dreams may do that even more sort of like defiantly in terms of like moving between these two kinds of spaces what was your what was your experience working with a visual artist like Shireen was it different than say a narrative filmmaker where she's um I mean his narrative in the film but it's really driven by Concepts one idea moving and flowing into the next you're not really sure what to to expect because once you get the script and you read it and you know that it has this kind of ethereal theme to it and it's like she said in the in Her speech earlier that it has a lot of uh has a lot that you don't have to suspend your your belief in it but that's the beautiful thing about doing this kind of independent artistic film and I've done plenty of the other kind of you know Studio stuff and it's you know a little formulaic if you will and uh so to embrace this kind of beautiful artistic out there uh peace was uh was an honor to be invited and an honor to uh be asked to play a second part while we're out there and this is during covid and then nothing was going on really in our lives and it was like we're sitting I'm sitting with my kids and this Paul came through and I went I had to read it and I went oh my God yes and I did my research as you did and I thought wow what an invitation and what beautiful people and and you know Rosaline but I mean it was just great people and our Leading Lady my god did she kill it in this piece I wish I wish she was here now because she is a delight as a person as she is on screen I enjoyed the whole process I enjoyed extremely beautiful location and I mostly enjoyed the people I mean what a genius both of them are as an actor just to embrace that kind of artistic Freedom they were just pushing this idea and to be on board was like I said an honor and a privilege and I'm so glad I was part of this beautiful artistic Masterpiece I think it's really amazing how both of you um before we even know who your characters are or before you even speak I mean you're you're I mean the way you've that you're framed in the art Direction you seem to belong in those spaces very strongly and then you um you know I these American archetypes that you're that you're playing I mean and Christopher you played two the sort of sports dad I I would imagine in one and then the the preacher on the other side very closely connected right did you see I mean did you see a Continuum between those two characters and when you were asked to come back very dreamlike in a way like it's very dream like I tried to make it as uh you know I wanted people to guess is that the same guy [Laughter] so um but playing playing both of them was great and they got the idea on the set to do it you know virtually which is just great and working with Anna Gunn was terrific and uh and then to come in and to do the preacher you know the Jesus it's uh it's three three syllables just so you know and uh it was just kind of fun to to let it rip on that and that was one of my favorite scenes in that whole movie it was just so out there so artistically crazy we talked about it earlier about you know the Flames being just right in this really spaced out house that we were in location and the fact that it came it came off so so interesting and so beautiful so again that's that's part of that uh that Journey you take and you throw yourself in your heart and your soul into it and uh that's what the joy of doing independent film is all about Michael the very same question to you in terms of how did you come to this project and what was your first take on as a composer um the challenges it might have presented to you in terms of the shireen's conceptual sort of structure because I can't imagine that final shot without your score this final shot is beautiful but the music carries us and sweeps us up with it in this really beautiful way I mean throughout the whole film your score is amazing but that is just such a powerful final sequence because of the music that's there thank you and I forgot your question I was so caught up in your praise oh that's okay we'll just move on no how when you first heard about the project um you know what attracted you to it and what were the challenges that maybe you thought you would have to face in in composing for a film like this I I think the the through line is the sort of the power of the vision even though we might not be able to articulate it which is kind of like dreams in some ways I think that it was just you can't explain it but it it um it it affects you very strongly and draws you in and maybe touches on some sort of I don't know what the word is but some subconscious thing or something that you know I I was just reading someone said that you don't have to understand poetry for it to affect you and it felt like there was this element of this immersive powerful not just an atmosphere but a kind of a a portrait of maybe of a country or a society or a group of individuals and I think the the sort of difficult to articulate power of that completely drew me in and it's it's something um I certainly have a huge hunger for the to be able to participate in things like that they affect me very strongly sure you know what I want to come back to you um it almost seems too obvious to ask sameen is a Stan is a stand-in for you and then or in a way sort of an alter ego so the question then becomes how important or how significant are dreams in your artistic practice is it something you do you record your dreams do you write them down like that well first of all I wanted to say that I was really about my experience Living in America and things that I understand and don't understand that people that I like and things that I don't like and and and so it really um was the manifestation of that and and this sense of disjointment between the Iranian American culture and I mean I think it's even musically I'm sorry I'm diverting a little bit from your question but we talked quite a lot with Michael because um for me this film had to have a footing in Iran and a footing in America a footing in this single person's Journey as a human being um and and and the country of America and and this is something that I've always done in my work because my work has always been a lot about my own emotional um and lots of my own anxieties but also it's never been just about me it's been about much bigger pictures and and yes I have been obsessed with dreams um and I've been very fascinated by how my dreams have tended to be a projection of my fears everything that I try not to think about during the day visit me in the evenings in my sleep and a lot of my dreams have been about my mother who lives in Iran and almost as if she represents the motherland and as she gets older I have always this anxiety if she passes then my connection to Iran and so I've had recurring dreams and I've made them into videos where she becomes Central to my my work so there's a lot of symbolism there's a lot of allegory there are things that you don't quite comprehend in your dreams and and and then there's a references to reality but things that don't make sense and I love all of that the surrealism of Dreams uh and I've I've been great information for an artist because again we think of like poets you know and we as Iranians we have a way of feeling comfortable with that kind of language that is you know that is abstraction really in the way that we use metaphors and alloy and symbolism to say what yeah so for me dreams are an extension of poetry yeah this question of surrealism and its presence in your work or in this film in particular was really interesting to me because I think we think of contemporary Iranian cinema at least as realist very realist based poetic realism I think for a certain period but I think almost relentlessly realistic you know more recently but you've I mean I've seen recently uh maybe a younger generation of Iranian filmmakers working in a more surrealist vein you have Jean-Claude Cartier was your co-screenwriter who you know wrote a number of important films for Louis benwell when a great 20th century filmmakers in surrealists but you also referenced I read um an 11th century book in Iran called the creature creatures of Wonder I think it was sort of a compendium from the 11th century of dreams and dream types and dreams like symbols can you talk a little bit about like I mean surrealism is a western concept can you but you can talk more about like surrealism or the Aesthetics of dreams as they exist in sort of Persian cultural history maybe this more a little about this this book creatures of of wonder um for the friends who haven't actually those um what you're speaking about was uh what I wrote on the images I do calligraphy over the photographs and then I interviewed the American citizens we collected their dreams we basically asked them you know uh what was their latest dream I was seeing in that sense I shot all those photographs that you saw and but then we refer to this ancient book of Iranian book that um we found the copy in the Iranian library that is a loose interpretation of Dreams or um The Surreal world that does not exist in the in sort of the real and so what happened was I felt strongly that if these were Americans and they were telling their dreams now I had to put in some of me as an Iranian some of my history some of my kind of traditions and so it was very important to me that we did research in that way and some of you can see the images it's not just writing there's also incredible illustrations so the images ultimately became a union between an Iranian artist sort of um infusing her own culture into the American faces and that's why I chose um I want to talk about the production design of the film and the location photography of the film because it's so essential to the work that you're you're both doing in the film but I want to start by talking with Robin and Christopher about it because Robin you seem your character you know it's a like I said very powerful for the brevity of which you're on screen but you seem to when you walk out of that kitchen you belong in that space I'm very curious you mean you that space feels like your characters I'm curious like when you walk onto a set like that where it's so clearly designed for a very particular Vision how does that how do you how do you draw on that or how does that impact you as a performer well first of all it's not a set it was a home in Albuquerque and it was exactly as it was there nothing was dressed so I was just overwhelmed that they hadn't found it's very surprised to hear that it felt like a very yeah okay yeah it was insane and every single thing in the house had to do with Jesus so there I was but what I didn't have to work at it did you get some time to walk around in that space and yeah yeah there was one book on the shelf that was by an atheist and I can't remember who it was might it might have been but it was a remarkable home do you get to meet the homeowners is that oh okay was that part of your sort of character development or research I'm sure I'm wondering it was it was a fascinating experience super you're at a very striking living room when we first meet you and you're not even in the living room you're in your virtual headsets when we meet you I'm curious I mean was that was that actually was that a home that was that was like that when you walked in here I don't believe it was very much dressed up either I just think it was a perfect you know capture of the American you know couple who's retired now and he's into his golf and she's into Maryland so uh it was really quite amazing to to see how well that all fitted together was one of the first scenes we did and uh it just was a great joy to do it and it would but I had such depth at the same time which I just loved is like what they're doing what do our dreams for our protection I mean what the hell so it was just a fun to play that kind of uh you know losing incredibility but at the same time know that that's a very affecting thing and when he walks off as oh you don't want my picture because I didn't tell you that I told my dream so you know Screw you so it was kind of like that it was very funny and uh it has a lot of Joy it kicks off the movie quite nice I think so yeah but but these these homes that the locations that they had were spectacular I particularly like the exterior walk where our Leading Lady walks by this looks like a pyramid a Sandstone oh sure and and just I'm like where in the heck are we it's just it's just the whole thing was like poetically uh Chosen and I I say kudos to her yeah the census building is interesting in that way because it feels very connected to the New Mexico architecture you expect but in the context of the film those the the etchings on the side feel very you know surreal or cryptic or enigmatic in a way that they're probably not intended how did you find how did you find some of the locations in New Mexico how long were you scouting for these places [Music] well we had the location scout and we described what we were looking for but we were all we wanted real homes you know we wanted and we went we looked at a lot of them and uh once you land at the right location or the right environment you know that this is what you want and then we talk to people and they accepted it you know we're literally like I mean the homes uh we did nothing to them and it's really that's really incredible to me yeah but for us are very ordinary I think in this film it's clearly a film made by non-americans because I think our look into the Southwest New Mexico the whole obsession with the road movies and the architecture of the motels the diners all of these are these iconic American architecture and even the homes even the choice of the people the African-American and the the Native American we we just had this way of making a tapestry of America in the way that was may I say exotic to us um and I and I think for so long uh for Iranians we've been very obsessed with that region of the Southwest and so I think we with the cinematographer we really went after it and that it has this kind of accented point of view I'm going to ask you one more question and we'll turn it over the audience so be thinking of your questions we'll have microphones on either side when I call you wait for the microphone to come down and then we'll go from there yeah I think sometimes American can I mean Americans I can still I mean can feel even foreign to each other as as different regions have their different cultures and their different aspects to it so um I wanted to ask um the the one thing we haven't talked about is the colony in the in in the middle of this portrait of America there was a colony of Iranian expatriates they're revolutionaries who have been there for 30 years and may not know they're still living in the past in the Middle where did where did that where did The Colony emerge from and how did it's such an enigma in the film but it's also so Central to simming's journey and her character well I'd like to explain about where we shot and I like to show you expand on what the meaning of it was but ironically um this was a village that was built for the military and American Military to train the soldiers to invade Afghanistan so um this was in the border of New Mexico and Mexico um it was this very strange place where we stayed for a few days um and and all those like they built the bazaar the mosques the the shops the streets and everything Adobe and they would send the soldiers basically to do Squad teams and um and basically attack the talibans um but meanwhile the animals are sleeping at night it was kind of a mess it's really scary um but I would like to ask JoJo to maybe explain what was the main idea about this colony the main idea I have no idea the rough idea see how different we are I mean I really it's a puzzle I know I I know what I sure I know what I know why you do all the Press now try it oh I mean to be honest with you uh I was one of those guys you know and I know a lot of people those revolutionaries of that time that's what I'm literally like that you know we have oh I like to make a scene that uh at some point Iran would be liberated with all of these guys on wheelchairs attacking you know I think they they're really they're around it's not a joke and some of them are pretty much organized and backed by U.S which is really scary it's called modular and they're pretty scary cult they have to run into a cult and the U.S government is using them keeping them as an option oh so you know it's uh it's it's also the absurdity I think it was more like a parody of so many Iranian people we know who have left Iran so many years ago and they never go back to Iran and they're now in their 70s and they're still trying to overthrow the government and and and they're meeting every week like twice a week um but of course this was absurd you know they were still like training on so it was actually also a lot to do jean-claude's uh vision of uh pushing everything Beyond you know I'm saying let's turn it over the audience to ask some questions so we're going to bring the mic over right over here on this side yeah there you go can you hear me great thank you so much not just for this film I was here last week and I watched it uh women without men and uh okay sorry okay is it better now so thank you so much not just for this film but also uh for women without men and looking for a mukilsum I was here last week and they will just post something from Egypt and I really admire uh you're very how can we say it meta cinematic approach to omoker's home and her her work uh I have a question about this film actually uh it's a protagonist assuming here is in some way her facial expressions are quite numb most of time with few exceptions like so what was behind this kind of a choice this is a first part second part is about the location of the Persian music in this film we have like I if I remember correctly we have two moments of Persian songs with when she is in the car driving only in this moments we have Persian songs so I know sometimes our choice are poetic and without a clear reason but I feel curious to know more about this thank you I just want to say that um with the character of Simeon um you know there's I I feel like there's an aspect of who the actress is and part of it is myself in a way there's a sense of loneliness and always feeling like an outcast like you don't belong among Americans but also you don't maybe belong among Iranians and so she lives in inside of her head she basically is disconnected from other people in a way that she really can't make a relationship and and I know many women who are like that not just women men as well where you're not quite on the planet you're always living inside and you have a lot of Secrets and a lot of pain but is is never really manifested and you cannot make small talks and and so for me in conversation with Sheila and shoja became very important that this character embodies that feeling of a woman that is deeply isolated and and suffers from disjointment between two cultures and also the past and the present that she's not able to let go of the past but she's not also able to be in the present time if that makes any sense and so the only way she can cope with the world is to create this secret life in herself which I think as artists we do do that you know we're very awkward in the social world but I think I'm the happiest when I'm just working you know because I'm really very honest and I'm very truthful so I am in that sense I think she's very naked you know um and about the music um you know I I don't mean to dominate but for me it was really important that there would be Persian music in this film um because it represented an aspect of This Woman's dilemma and emotional connection to Iran and and Sheila van the main actress still listens to all this music from Iran from the 70s and 60s it's incredible how connected we are to this culture and and yet with Michael's Music um because Persian music is so melancholic and so sad for many of us because it's so nostalgic but I like the score of the film because it's so Americano the very end it's so sad at the same time and if the story was so Universal about this shared pain between all of us I thought the music and traveling between Persian music and the music that came at the end at the score or throughout to meet every equally emotional and and that's something that you know I look out for in in the films sorry okay um let's ask right here in the yeah you're right there yeah let's bring a mic down to the um first of all shooting I want to say I'm a huge fan of your work and this film was amazing and this team is amazing um there's a scene there's a scene where her father's poster is torn down and it kind of made me think about how Iranians live in the United States how our actions in the United States can affect the people in Iran their legacy our family that we still have in Iran and I was just wondering as an Iranian filmmaker and artist outside of Iran working outside of Iran is this something you often deal with and think about and is this a decision or kind of was this a idea you wanted to represent in your film the missing of the father Point yeah for me The Colony and I really like for sure to explain more it was she means nightmare and and I and I think her father being such an obsession and and and and and the fact that um that his face was there and then it was missing and and this whole conspiracy of that they were playing with her um it was really very important um I also felt that the images at the very end of the film where she puts together the images of her family next to the American people it's very significant move from that moment where she's not able to disconnect from her father um I don't know I I think this was an idea that we had that actually a lot of the images in that room were my family and social just families pictures that some of them were very surprised to see um pictures of family when you're living in Exile it's it's very painful because you know they really sort of reminder of this feeling of disconnect and that's all do you want to add questions oh it's it's I think it's the lack right I mean it's that negative space there I always thought of it as the concepts of like if one picture is removed from Men it would represent the lack and emotionally perhaps that's what we could communicate you know as what it is really what her experience is or what our experience is let me go in the city on this side let's go in the back right way in the back here on the side thank you just wanted to congratulate all of you for this beautiful Masterpiece and also the two films that we watched last week truly significant and I have everything still stuck in my head since last week so congratulations for that um what really stood out to me because I myself left Iran when I was six and a half and I grew up in Germany dealing with a lot of racism and then I came here and it was more welcoming but you still stand out as a foreigner sometimes and what was really remarkable about the character of Sheila was that she worked for the census and she went to people's homes and they trusted her for some reason although she was a foreigner people that were white or native trusted her with all these answers and with all her their dreams so if you can elaborate more on that on how you chose a middle eastern character that had Iranian background to be trusted so much and that was really really nice to watch and also my mom wanted to know how you went about the casting how you found each actor to represent the character that you had envisioned especially is resonate with the situation now because you choose such a powerful woman thank you and to answer your first question um you know I've lived in the United States longer than Iran I've been here for many many years and I have also lived outside of New York City where I live we have homes upstairs and I've always been very struck by the way in which no matter how many years you've been in this country you pretty much remain an outsider and and the reception of the people um to you especially when you travel outside of the main cities are sometimes a very conflicting there are times that I I felt extremely welcome um and and really people who showed a lot of curiosity about who we are as Iranians uh the kind of exotic you know and very kind um and then there are people who don't open up uh who are very hesitant about welcoming you especially after September 11th there was a huge sense of antagonism um and you know I I feel this is if I had to compare Europe with America I've always felt a lot more racism in Europe almost immediately across the board but in America I felt largely as a country that is very loving it's very kind that is not really racist in majority but nevertheless there's a lot of ignorance about you know the way they categorize people from for example from the Middle East and simplify it and so I have had instances where I felt that people felt really awkward toward me and or treated me in a way that I felt very uncomfortable but I've also been extremely moved by majority of Americans that have been so welcoming to us and kind and compassionate and um and the reality is that probably I will live here the rest of my life I will never live in a country that I look like everyone else and I speak the same language I will always be an outsider and a foreigner whether it's in Europe or Mexico or America and that's the reality we have to live with and there are always going to be people who accept you and people who alienate you and I think it's this nature of human beings but in in general in this film we really carefully thought about the demographics and you know um and and how she may or not may not be invited and her treatment if you remember the house that Jackie lives um this few older men were extremely racist with their remarks because that's the information they have that all Iranians are Arabs um and we tried to put that in but then there were other instances that they were just totally welcoming so um yeah well I want to follow up on that if you don't mind because you this project you know the first we talked about is the first one where you're looking at America and sort of examining what America is it's I'm as my understanding that this project began during a moment in American history when I think a lot of us were running what is happening here and what is going on and I'm curious how you felt was there anything particular about that moment let's just call it post 2016 that made you really want to examine more closely this country that you've been living in did you see the kinds of experiences that you're talking about getting worse did you did you were you feeling was this a way of like processing maybe that that changed towards you know sort of step backwards I'm curious I I can tell you one thing that I always um thought that you know as a as an Iranian that you know especially after Trump that things were just going haywire and then when I went to New Mexico and started to photographing a lot of people making the film and the videos I started for the first time and so I was always closer to Iranians and not so much with Americans Etc when I went to New Mexico and we started to work on this film I spent more time with other minorities including Native Americans African-Americans Hispanic and and something strange happened for me that had never happened before where I for the first time really connected with other minorities in America uh and and and it felt incredible because I thought I only relate to Iranian people because they know how I feel and our situations are so common but really what was an eye-opener for me in land of dreams was how I connected and identified with the challenges of other minority groups and and their stories and their anxieties and their fears and uh concerns about the future of America was very similar that of ours uh and I and that was a revelation and and I uh from then on my whole point of view has changed in a way that I don't only connect to Iranian as I connect to many other parties time for a couple more questions let's go right down here in front let's wait for the mic yeah shinjan I love the movie and congratulate you and sugar for the for the movie very beautiful one I have two questions the first one is the the singing bird doesn't fly at night unless he's lost the home that's you I know that but for the code that the cracking the course for the letter in the colony what was the meaning of that I missed that one I let's show the answer the the code that they were trying to crack it was uh It Was Written in abject but he was gibberish you know oh it's just like it was I mean it's the scene is observed right I mean it's the whole the scene is supposed to be play on absurdity so your you have a contrast with highly uh like kind of a corporate America that has taken over the government and then their surveillance is all the way all the way to taking your dreams you know and they're not interested in your Consciousness any longer but also your subconscious and it's contrasted with this image of backwardness of that their code is also written in a language that belongs to Middle Ages so I mean I don't know I mean it's but I don't know if that makes any sense really but I have time for one more question let's go um way over here on the side here putting the mic down um thank you so much um first of all I just wanted to say how much I appreciate you as an artist as an Iranian artist because um I was in great movement back then and um seeing and hearing that you were doing Hunger Strike and supporting um the great movement meant a lot to all Iranians actually back then on all the students in the school in undergrad that we were studying so I just wanted to say how much I appreciate that um after all all these years and I'm nervous seeing you also now um also um in the film um you um I just wanted to see if you can elaborate a little bit about um a meaning between story and dreams because um semen in the movie mentioned that if you forget the dream then it becomes story and I just wanted to see how you can elaborate a little bit about that um first of all thank you for your kind words um I mean I think what happens for most of us when we wake up and we think about a dream uh and immediately vanishes I I mean it happens to me almost every day I dream a lot and then you you actually when you try to explain it to someone else you turn it into a story you give it a beginning middle and the end but in reality it's impossible and to have it be like that so um I I think a lot of this also came from Jean-Claude who was very very interested in in dreams but and that but that's what's it is is that dreams vanish so quickly and then when you try to describe it it becomes a story and we we make we turn it into a story um I just want to say one thing as someone asked about the casting and I forgot to say that is very important to us in this film the casting part which we did do in the pandemic it was incredibly difficult but the idea was that we would have very iconic American actors and taking big Parts in because there were six short stories and each story was a household and it had its own significant characters but they were dominated by particular actors and for us that was really interesting methodology and um and we were very lucky that they agreed to work with small directors like us and and so um and and Matt Dylan and um William Mosley uh seemed like a perfect candidate for their role and and they both agreed but for me um um Sheila um going through these different houses encountering this incredible characters and actors it was really a strong idea and that's what we were aiming well like I said earlier it really is an iconic American cast by an iconic visual artist and I just want to say it was a huge honor to have so much talent upon here on stage thank you so much everyone for taking the time to come out I really appreciate it thanks for coming everybody