My Stolen Planet is a diary-style audiovisual narrative by Iranian filmmaker Farah, who is forced to create her own planet in order to be free. Farah buys other people’s memories in the form of 8mm films and records her own to create an alternative history of Iran. Born during the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979, she captures moments of joy and defiance in her daily life, navigating the contrast between domestic freedom and external oppression. At the same time, she collects 8mm archives from people she doesn’t know. By relying on these recordings of others, she gains a new perspective on memory loss. Her connection to Leyla, a professor who left Iran during the revolution, adds a name and a story to one of the faces in her archive. Farah’s mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, motivates her to continue the fight against forgetting. In the fall of 2022, the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement becomes a turning point in Farah’s life, as well as in the lives of many other Iranian men and women, growing into a general rebellion that is suppressed once again. A well-crafted and moving first-person essay brilliantly confirms that every political reality has a sub-reality and that resistance comes in many forms, even in the privacy of one’s own home.

*The projection will be followed by a Q&A with director Farahnaz Sharifi.

Awards and Festivals:

Berlinale (2024); Hong Kong International Film Festival (2024); Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival (2024); Visions du Réel (2024); Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival (2024) – FIPRESCI Prize, Best Film; Dokfest Munchen (2024) – Best Original Score; Bolzano Film Festival Bozen (2024) – Audience Award