Table of Contents
Foreword: Why This Essay?
1. Historical Introduction: Waves of Migration, Exile, and Flight of Iranian People
2. Definitions and Differences: Migration, Exile, Flight
2.1. Migration: Movement Between Geography and Meaning
2.2. Exile: Removal from Native Ground
2.3. Flight: Between Survival and Placelessness
3. Common Elements in the Artistic Experience of Migration, Exile, and Flight
3.1. Art: A Home in Homelessness
3.2. Language: The First Border, the Last Bastion
3.3. Memory: The Raw Material of Art in Exile
3.4. Social Understanding: A Real Interpretation of a Society in Transition
4. Examples from the History of Exile Art: Lessons for Today
4.1. The Experience of German Filmmakers and Lessons for Today
4.2. Comparison with Other Waves of Artists in Exile
5. Special Challenges of Film in Migration and Exile
5.1. “Film”: The Art of the Image, Dependent on Resources
5.2. The Challenge of Distance and Social Changes: Narrating from Afar
5.3. Location and Reconstruction: The Visual Challenge of Geography in Exile Cinema
5.4. The Challenge of Migrant Filmmakers in Iran: Reverse Border-Crossing
5.5. Audience, Money, Connections, Language: Unequal Rules of the Game
6. Filmmaking in Exile: An Opportunity for Ethnic, Religious, and Sexual Minorities
6.1. Systematic Exclusion in the Homeland
6.2. Religious Minorities and Barriers to Self-Representation
6.3. Sexual Identity and the Impossibility of Representation
6.4. Exile as the First Space of Possibility
6.5. New Perspectives and Stories
6.6. Challenges of Authentic Representation
6.7. Identity as Process Rather Than Essence
7. Successes and Failures in Exile Cinema
7.1. Success Factors: Examples of Successful Filmmakers
7.2. Factors of Failure: Examples of Unsuccessful Filmmakers
7.3. The Concept of “Cultural Iran” in Exile
8. The Role of the Second Generation: New Voice, Living Memory
9. Film Continues to Resist
10. Questions for the Continuing Journey
11. Conclusion: Art That Knows No Borders
Foreword: Why This Essay?
The question of the relationship between film as art, migration, and identity has occupied me for many years – both as a filmmaker and as someone who has experienced migration and life between different cultural contexts firsthand. What happens to artistic expression when the cultural ground beneath one’s feet shifts? What special challenges face filmmakers who want to tell their stories far from home?
There are no simple answers to these questions. Each individual experience of exile, flight, or migration is unique, shaped by personal circumstances, historical contexts, and not least by the medium in which the filmmaker works.
With this essay, I would like to invite my colleagues to complement, question, and where necessary, correct my thoughts. It is meant to serve as an impulse to open a discussion that is of great importance for a film-loving nation like Iran and its filmmakers, actors, and all those artistically involved both inside and outside the country.
I am particularly interested in the dialogue between different generations – between those who left the country as adults and those who were born or raised abroad. Between those who work with digital media today and those who shaped the beginnings of Iranian exile cinema.
In an age of global networking and increasing migration movements, the question of how film is created and received across borders is gaining increasing relevance – not only for Iranian artists but for all who live and work between cultures.
In conclusion, I would like to thank my esteemed colleagues Mohammad Haghighat and Kaveh Farnam and Ashkan Rahgozar for their very helpful comments and suggestions.
Ali Samadi Ahadi
1. Historical Introduction: Waves of Migration, Exile, and Flight of Iranian People
Migration, exile, and flight have always been linked to political, social, and security developments in Iran’s recent history. From the migration of intellectuals after the coup of August 19, 1953, to the comprehensive exile following the 1979 revolution, to economically and culturally driven migration and emergency flight after political repressions – each wave of population movement had its own characteristics and has left unique traces in art. In many cases, the trigger for this movement was not choice but compulsion. The experience of fleeing from danger, from violence, from torture is an inseparable part of the artistic experience of many contemporary Iranian artists – both those who arrived in host countries and those who were stopped along the way.
The literary and artistic migration of Iranian people has extended across different decades from Paris to Los Angeles, from Istanbul to Berlin, sometimes triggered by repression and censorship, sometimes by the search for freedom of expression or professional development. What all these experiences have in common, however, is the artist’s effort to create meaning amidst ruptures and displacements.
Sometimes a person does not choose a path; rather, the path chooses them. Sometimes what you leave behind is not just home, not just city or country, but a part of your identity. And sometimes, the only thing you can take with you is the narrative. The memory. And the art.
In today’s tense world, terms like migration, exile, and flight are less descriptions of individual states than indicators of global crises. Crises that have their roots in politics, war, economics, identity, and oppression. But these terms – migration, exile, flight – each have different meanings and emotional charges, and their relationship to art and the artist is a deep connection between appreciation and hatred, complex, sometimes destructive, and sometimes redemptive.
2. Definitions and Differences: Migration, Exile, Flight
2.1 Migration: Movement Between Geography and Meaning
Migration, in its broadest sense, means the decision to leave one place to live elsewhere. This decision can be voluntary or made out of necessity. But what is inherent in every migration is the encounter with the “Other.” With another language, another perspective, another culture. And perhaps the most important aspect of migration is the temporal dimension of this decision and action. Those who migrate have time to reflect, to review, and to explore the positive and negative aspects of the decision and the place of migration. They know where they are going.
The migrating artist is a carrier of two worlds. A world left behind and a world in which they have landed. They do not fit completely into either. They are always at the threshold. And from this standing at the border, art is born. Art that is neither mere imitation nor denial. But a dialogue between past and present, between root and branch, between memory and dream.
2.2 Exile: Removal from Native Ground
Exile is a special kind of migration. Expulsion. Erasure. Being forgotten or consigned to oblivion. Exile is not only a spatial displacement but a kind of social death. A break in connection to context, to history, to earth. The exiled person does not make this decision. The decision is made for them. And so they have no opportunity for review and decision-making and are usually unfamiliar with the place of exile.
Yet in erasure and foreignness lies a hidden power of creation. The exiled artist is compelled to create meaning anew. To redefine themselves. And if successful, from this reconstruction emerges art that is often deeper, more honest, and more courageous.
Political exiles often create art that carries memory and resistance. Through poetry, film, painting, or theater, they keep alive what has been suppressed. Their art is not just for beauty but for survival. For bearing witness. Although the sharp edge of the precipice of politics threatens art and the artist. The threat that their art becomes sloganistic and moves away from artistic purity.
2.3 Flight: Between Survival and Placelessness
Flight is an even more extreme experience than exile. It is the moment when “being” in one place is no longer possible. Flight begins with fear. With running, with hiding. Flight from a specific place to an unspecified place. To a place that could be anywhere. A place where it doesn’t matter where it is. It just needs to be safe for that moment.
The fugitive is like someone in a choppy sea who is constantly pulled underwater and tries with all their might to keep themselves above water to breathe, and suddenly the wave of life throws them into a corner of the world. Like Robinson Crusoe, who finds himself on an unknown island and knows neither where he is, nor who the people on this island are, what language they speak, or what their way of life is like. The art born of flight often bears the burden of violence, shock, vulnerability, and confusion.
Films made in refugee camps, plays that emerged from solitary cells, or poems written at border crossings all testify to this truth: flight is not the end of creativity. Sometimes it is its beginning.
3. Common Elements in the Artistic Experience of Migration, Exile, and Flight
3.1 Art: A Home in Homelessness
In confrontation with migration, exile, and flight, art remains the only remaining tool to express the unspeakable. Art can become a home for someone who has lost their home. A mother tongue for someone whose language has been forbidden. A map for someone who has lost direction.
In the art of migrants, we encounter contradictions: suffering and beauty. Memory and future. Anger and forgiveness. And it is precisely these contradictions that make it rich, honest, and effective.
3.2 Language: The First Border, the Last Bastion
Language is one of the first things questioned in migration and exile. Many exiled artists are forced to write, perform, or sing in a new language. This language change is not just instrumental but part of identity. Sometimes broken words create new images, and this language evasion becomes language creation.
While language may be a means of communication with society for ordinary people, for the artist, it is the water in which they swim. To tell stories, to define society, they must know not only the meaning of words but also the meanings behind words in order to play with them. The migrating or exiled artist is in a difficult position: either they must preserve their mother tongue and have access to a more limited audience, or they must turn to a new language and face the challenge of expressing emotional and cultural nuances.
Some artists, like the Palestinian poet Samih al-Qasim, consciously remained loyal to their mother tongue because they saw it as part of cultural resistance. Others, like Rafik Schami, turned to a second language (German) after years and became successful in it. And a group, like Nabokov, created works in both languages.
For Iranian artists, this challenge is even more difficult. Persian, with its structure, sound, and special subtleties, is a language that is not easily translated into European languages. Many Iranian exiles, such as Ghazaleh Alizadeh or Reza Daneshvar, continued to write in Persian, but others, like Goli Taraghi, began writing in a second language (French).
Iranian filmmakers in exile are perhaps more than other artists confronted with the challenge of language. A filmmaker who worked with Iranian actors in Iran must work with actors in exile who have a different language and culture. Mastering the language of the host country for team direction, scriptwriting, and negotiating with producers is a serious challenge for many filmmakers. Perhaps this is why many of them have sought refuge in the language of the image – a language that transcends verbal boundaries. An example of this approach can be seen in the works of Shirin Neshat, which rely less on dialogue and more on the power of the image.
3.3 Memory: The Raw Material of Art in Exile
Memory in migration and exile is not just the past. It is the most vibrant element of life. The memory of the city, the smell of food, the tone of the mother, forbidden songs – all become artistic material. The exiled artist builds with these memories, shapes them, creates refuge from them.
3.4 Social Understanding: A Real Interpretation of a Society in Transition
Art as a lived experience within society benefits from the invisible secrets of social realities. Artists who work under conditions of migration, exile, or flight should be a dynamic and vivid reflection of a society that struggles with both political and economic complexities and linguistic and cultural ruptures. In this, the ability to precisely understand social conditions and translate them into the language of art is one of the greatest challenges. Their artistic messages should prompt the viewer to deep reflection; a thinking that leads from economic constraints and social issues toward a comprehensive and human narrative. To make these experiences even more tangible, it is worth taking a look at the history of artistic exile.
4. Examples from the History of Exile Art: Lessons for Today
The history of exile art is full of names that became more global through leaving home. World literature has been enriched by the works of exiles such as James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Mahmoud Darwish, and Franz Werfel. Despite the pain of separation from their homeland, these artists were able to transform the exile experience into creative energy and create universal works.
In contemporary Persian literature as well, writers such as Shahrokh Meskub, Bahram Beyzai, Mansoureh Shojaei, or Atefeh Gorgin found in exile linguistic and formal experiments that would not have been possible in their homeland. The art of Iranian migrants has also found new forms in music, film, and painting. Artists who had to leave their homeland took their roots with them and planted them in different soil.
4.1 The Experience of German Filmmakers and Lessons for Today
Among worldwide examples of exile, the experience of German filmmakers who were forced to leave their country during the Nazi regime is a historical and instructive example. Many prominent figures of German cinema in the 1930s – including Jews, leftists, and critics of the regime – sought refuge in the United States, France, Great Britain, or the Soviet Union. Some of them, such as Billy Wilder, Fritz Lang, and Ernst Lubitsch, were able not only to establish themselves in Western cinema but also to assert themselves as influential figures in world cinema.
But alongside these successes, there were filmmakers who could not adapt to the new conditions in exile; people like Luis Trenker or Ludwig Berger, who, with the loss of their cultural context, mother tongue, and professional networks, could not continue their artistic path in their new country.
These experiences show that success in exile depends not only on talent but also on factors such as language, access to resources, knowledge of the host culture, and the ability to build a new artistic identity – the same challenges that many of today’s migrant and exile artists face.
4.2 Comparison with Other Waves of Artists in Exile
The experience of Iranian artists in exile can be compared to similar experiences of Cuban artists after the 1959 revolution or Chilean artists after the 1973 coup. In all three cases, profound political changes led to a wave of artist migration. There are, however, also differences: Cuban artists, especially in Miami, were able to build a more cohesive cultural community and preserve their collective identity. Iranian artists, on the other hand, have achieved less cohesion due to their greater geographical dispersion and their political and cultural diversity.
These comparisons help us to better understand common patterns and important differences in the experience of artistic exile and to comprehend why some exile communities were more successful than others in preserving and expanding their cultural heritage.
5. Special Challenges of Film in Migration and Exile
5.1 “Film”: The Art of the Image, Dependent on Resources
Among all the arts with which a migrant, exile, or refugee can create, film is perhaps the most difficult and at the same time most powerful medium. Unlike poetry or painting, film is a collective, expensive, infrastructure-dependent, and deeply social art.
Film requires not only imagination but also money, connections, access, language, and a fine understanding of the society in which it is produced.
5.2 The Challenge of Distance and Social Changes: Narrating from Afar
One of the most difficult aspects of filmmaking in exile is the attempt to tell stories from a country that is thousands of kilometers away and whose society is constantly changing. With each passing year, the exiled filmmaker becomes further removed from the everyday realities of their society of origin. Changes in street language, new expressions, the way people interact, common jokes, speech patterns, and even dress and behavior patterns – all essential for a realistic filmmaker – gradually become inaccessible.
This distance is a serious challenge, especially for a filmmaker who wants to tell stories connected to the contemporary social fabric of their society. Many exiled filmmakers have pointed out that after a few years of absence, they feel their stories have either become stuck in the past or transformed into a fantastical and sometimes clichéd image of their homeland. The domestic audience sometimes also feels this distance and perceives the works of exiled filmmakers as “unrealistic” or “belonging to the past.”
This problem leads some exiled filmmakers to turn to historical, symbolic, or more general narratives – stories that are less dependent on the exact details of contemporary everyday life. Others try to close this gap through collaboration with artists in the homeland, continuous study of social media, or short trips (if possible).
Another solution that many migrant and exile filmmakers have chosen is the complete detachment from topics related to their country of origin and the turn to telling stories from the host society. Prominent filmmakers such as Sohrab Shahid Sales, Iraj Azimi, Mohammad Haghighat, Ali Abbasi, and many others have made films that have no direct connection to Iran. These filmmakers, by immersing themselves in the culture and society of the host country, have been able to cast a fresh, intercultural gaze on universal human themes – a perspective that might not have been possible without the experience of migration and life in two cultures. Although this approach means moving away from directly narrating the homeland, it can sometimes lead to the creation of works that, on a deeper level, reflect the experience of the cultural and identitarian duality of the migrated artist.
The fact remains, however, that a deep connection to the core of a society is something that comes from continuous living in that environment and is difficult to compensate for from a distance.
5.3 Location and Reconstruction: The Visual Challenge of Geography in Exile Cinema
One of the most important and less examined challenges in exile cinema is the question of place and visual geography. Filmmakers who tell stories from Iran in exile are often confronted with the question: How can Iran be reconstructed outside of Iran? Is such a reconstruction even necessary?
This question leads to several levels of reflection:
- Necessity of geographical reconstruction: To tell a story set in Iran, must one necessarily create a space resembling Iran? Or can the same story be depicted in a completely different and obviously foreign location? For example, can a story that is inherently Iranian be depicted in the streets of Berlin or Paris without attempting to hide or change the identity of these places?
- Visual authenticity and its effect on the audience: If an Iranian story is told in a non-Iranian space, does the audience believe it? Does this visual contradiction lead to the audience distancing themselves from the narrative, or on the contrary, does it add a layer of meaning to the work?
- Artistic value of conscious incoherence: Can this discrepancy between story and place be used as an artistic element? Just as Brechtian alienation is sometimes used in theater to make the viewer think, can the obvious contradiction between the narrative location and the visual location be used to create a sense of exile, rupture, and duality?
Some exiled filmmakers find or reconstruct with great expense and effort locations in neighboring countries (such as Turkey or Armenia) or countries with similar architectural and geographical environments (such as Morocco or Spain) to preserve the “feel of Iran” in their films. This effort stems from the belief in the importance of “visual authenticity” and its connection to the authenticity of the narrative. But the question remains: Is this “authenticity” really the essence of the story?
In contrast, other filmmakers prefer to make an artistic opportunity out of this limitation. They consciously decide not to hide the contradiction between story and image but to use it as a metaphor for exile itself. This approach allows the filmmaker to speak of the identitarian and spatial duality of exile not only in the text of the narrative but also in the form and visual language of the film.
In both cases, the question of place and geography in exile cinema is more than just a matter of production and location scouting. This question returns to the core of exile: Where is our home? And is the narrative bound to place or does it transcend it?
5.4 The Challenge of Migrant Filmmakers in Iran: Reverse Border-Crossing
Besides exile and flight, there is another phenomenon in contemporary Iranian cinema: the presence and activity of Iranian migrant filmmakers and actors who return to Iran for film production. This group consists of migrants who have neither fled nor live in exile, but are in an intermediate and complex position that could be called “reverse border-crossing.”
These artists, many of whom live in European countries or America, go to Iran for a period, make a film or act in a film, and then return to their country of residence. Remarkably, however, most of these works either receive no screening permission in Iran or, if they do, can only be shown in a very limited and censored form.
This situation creates a strange paradox: a filmmaker who makes films in Iran and about Iran, but whose audience is mainly outside of Iran; like a poet who composes in their mother tongue, but their language mates cannot hear their poem. As a result, these artists try to show their works at festivals and in cinemas outside of Iran – an effort that is sometimes successful and sometimes not.
What makes this phenomenon more complex are the political sensitivities and criticisms that these artists face from both sides: In Iran, they are sometimes accused of “portraying Iran in a negative light” and “depicting an unfavorable image of Iran for the Western audience,” and outside the country, sometimes of “collaboration with the censorship system” or “compromise with restrictions.”
These artists also face another challenge: Since they travel to Iran and exit again, they must be careful not to engage in strongly critical activities against the Iranian political system outside the country, as they might face problems and restrictions on future trips. This involuntary self-censorship adds another layer of complexity to their artistic work and puts them in a difficult position between freedom of expression and the possibility of continuing to work in Iran.
Nevertheless, some of these films have managed to build a bridge between two worlds and offer a different, multi-layered portrayal of today’s Iran – a portrayal that neither falls into the trap of Orientalist clichés nor is captured by the official domestic discourse. These films represent, in a way, a third discourse: a discourse that, with awareness of both spaces, tries to create a deeper dialogue.
The experience of this group of artists shows that concepts like “inside” and “outside,” “us” and “them,” have become extremely fluid in today’s world. They live, just like exiled filmmakers, on a border – a border that this time is not geographical, but cultural, political, and identitarian.
5.5 Audience, Money, Connections, Language: Unequal Rules of the Game
In all the arts, and particularly in cinema, one of the fundamental questions is: Who is your audience, and for whom are you creating art? Exiled filmmakers face a double challenge – on the one hand, the doors to the market of their homeland are closed; on the other, in order to enter the market of the host country, they are often forced to adopt themes and forms that are understandable and appealing to their new audience. This dual pressure can place them in the difficult position of having to choose between artistic authenticity and economic survival.
Film is a medium deeply tied to capital, infrastructure, and teamwork. Even the lowest-budget productions require technical equipment, actors, locations, and post-production resources. For exiled filmmakers, securing these resources without established access to professional networks in the host country presents a major hurdle. Investors and arts funding bodies – whether private or public – typically seek “marketable” and “understandable” stories, not necessarily the complex, personal narratives that many exiled artists wish to tell.
These limitations can become a form of invisible censorship. The thought of spending years on a film that is ultimately unseen or misunderstood is deeply disheartening. Many exiled filmmakers have pointed out that they are often forced to “culturally translate” their stories – a process that risks eroding subtle layers of meaning.
Building professional networks, mastering the language, and learning the social codes of the host society are all crucial for success – skills that, like learning a new language, require time, effort, and sometimes letting go of parts of one’s former identity.
Nevertheless, some exiled filmmakers have managed to turn these challenges into opportunities: by sensitively adapting to the social and cultural contexts of their host countries, they created narratives that, while rooted in their cultural origins, resonated meaningfully with new audiences. Their works touched on universal themes such as displacement, belonging, loneliness, and the search for meaning.
Others, rather than adapting, consciously embraced the impossibility of representing the homeland directly: through narrative fractures, unfinished imagery, and deliberate gaps, they conveyed the experience of rupture, loss, and homelessness to the audience.
Both approaches demonstrate that artistic engagement with migration and exile is more than a matter of adaptation or complaint: it opens the way for the creation of new aesthetic languages, portraying identity not as a fixed essence but as a living, multi-layered, and dynamic process.
6. Filmmaking in Exile: An Opportunity for Ethnic, Religious, and Sexual Minorities
Another important aspect that is often overlooked in the discussion of art in exile is the special significance that filmmaking abroad can have for members of minorities. For many people from ethnic, religious, or sexual minorities in Iran, exile paradoxically represents the first space in which they have the opportunity to realize their artistic ambitions at all.
6.1 Systematic Exclusion in the Homeland
In the non-Persian-speaking regions of Iran, such as Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Baluchistan, or the Arabic-speaking areas, there is not only a lack of basic infrastructure for film education and production. Rather, it’s a systematic policy of marginalization: access to art colleges, film schools, and production resources is disproportionately difficult for people from these regions. The cultural-political doctrine of the regime aims to control and restrict the representation of cultural diversity.
For young people in cities like Tabriz, Sanandaj, or Zahedan, the thought of becoming a filmmaker is often so far from reality that it is not even considered as a possible life path. As I can report from personal experience, in Tabriz, the idea of entering the film world seemed completely beyond the realm of possibility – not only because of a lack of resources but because the entire cultural environment did not envision this option.
6.2 Religious Minorities and Barriers to Self-Representation
For members of religious minorities – be they Bahá’í, Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, or Dervish orders – access to the film industry is even more difficult. They are not only confronted with practical obstacles but also with a narrative that either ignores or distorts their stories. Official film production in Iran rarely allows authentic representations of religious minorities that go beyond folkloristic elements or simplified stereotypes.
6.3 Sexual Identity and the Impossibility of Representation
For people with different sexual orientations or gender identities, the situation is even more precarious. Their existence is denied or criminalized in official Iran, making any form of artistic engagement with these identities almost impossible. The few films that touch on these topics cannot be shown in Iran and must be produced abroad.
6.4 Exile as the First Space of Possibility
Against this background, exile becomes for many not primarily a place of loss but the first space in which there is even the possibility of articulating one’s own voice through film. Filmmakers like Bahman Ghobadi (of Kurdish origin) or Hiner Saleem only found full freedom outside of Iran to tell stories from a Kurdish perspective.
Especially for artists from minorities, the rupture that exile represents is often less traumatic than for those from privileged centers. They have already experienced marginality, non-belonging, and cultural translation in their homeland. This experience can lead to a special sensitivity and a differentiated perspective in exile.
6.5 New Perspectives and Stories
The increasing presence of minority filmmakers in international cinema has contributed to the emergence of a more polyphonic, complex image of Iranian identity in recent decades. Stories that have no place in the official discourse find their form and their audience in exile.
These films are often characterized by a special multilingualism – not only in the literal sense (as in films where Kurdish, Azerbaijani, or Arabic is spoken alongside Persian) but also in a metaphorical sense: they navigate between different cultural codes and reference systems, thus creating new, hybrid forms of storytelling.
6.6 Challenges of Authentic Representation
Nevertheless, these filmmakers also face the challenge of conveying their stories to an international audience without falling into the trap of exoticizing self-presentation. The market pressure on exile filmmakers can sometimes lead to the reinforcement of stereotypes when the more complex aspects of cultural identity are sacrificed in favor of more digestible narratives.
Moreover, the question remains to what extent these films actually reach the communities from which their creators come. Are they received by the diasporic community? Do they, through unofficial channels, also find their way back to the home regions? Or do they ultimately remain limited to a Western festival audience?
6.7 Identity as Process Rather Than Essence
What these films have in common, however, is the depiction of identity not as a static essence but as an ongoing process of negotiation and transformation. They show that cultural identity – be it ethnic, religious, or sexual – is never complete but in constant motion, influenced by historical circumstances, personal decisions, and collective experiences.
It is perhaps in this emphasis on the processual, on becoming rather than being, that one of the most valuable contributions that minority filmmaking in exile can make lies: it reminds us that no culture, no identity, and no community is ever isolated or unchangeable – an insight that is of particular importance in times of increasing identitarian hardening.
7. Successes and Failures in Exile Cinema
Iran is one of the few countries in film history that has the highest number of films produced in exile. This phenomenon has several reasons: first, the deep and historical love of Iranians for cinema; second, the persistence of one of the longest forms of dictatorship in the period after the invention of film; and third, the significant population of Iranians in exile, which has created an extensive network of viewers, filmmakers, and supporters in various countries.
7.1 Success Factors: Examples of Successful Filmmakers
Among exiled filmmakers, some were able to present their narratives to a worldwide audience and find international recognition. The reasons for the success of these filmmakers can be summarized as follows:
• Mastery of a universal visual language: Shirin Neshat was able to portray issues related to Iranian women and exile at an international level by using a universal visual language. Despite language limitations, she succeeded in establishing a deep connection with the global audience.
• Use of European production structures: Arash Riahi, as a second-generation filmmaker, was able to create films that had both cinematic and political voice by using European production structures. He was able to understand and utilize the European financing system well.
• Continuous presence at festivals: Rafi Pitts was able to maintain his presence through continuous attendance at festivals and interaction with the world of independent cinema. This continuous presence enabled him to build a network of professional relationships.
• Authentic and simultaneously universal narrative: Marjane Satrapi was able to tell stories with her unique graphic style and an insightful perspective that, despite their deep Iranian roots, were understandable and attractive to a global audience.
7.2 Factors of Failure: Examples of Unsuccessful Filmmakers
These are aspects that drive many artists to abandon their art. In film art, we’ve had many individuals who were famous artists in their country and won international awards, but when they left their country, they lost their power. Among the reasons for these failures are:
• Lack of adaptation to the new production system: Mohsen Makhmalbaf, despite international success in Iran, could not be equally successful in exile. One of the main reasons for this was the difficulty in adapting to different production systems.
• Language challenges: Amir Naderi, after migrating to the USA, struggled for years with linguistic and cultural challenges that affected the quality of his works.
• Loss of cultural context: Abbas Kiarostami, even with his global fame, could not repeat the same depth and impact of his Iranian works in his films made outside of Iran, as he was removed from his original cultural context.
• Repetition of clichés and market expectations: Some filmmakers, in an attempt to attract Western audiences, fell into repeating expected clichés of “Iranian cinema” and lost their original creativity.
7.3 The Concept of “Cultural Iran” in Exile
A colleague who has recently fled from Iran who sees himself as detached from the geography of Iran and entered into “cultural Iran,” views the opportunity for Iranian artists in collaboration using modern technical possibilities. This view offers a romantic and hopeful image of cultural exile.
Does something like a unified and unique “cultural Iran” really exist? Does this culture remain uniform among Iranians scattered in Los Angeles, Paris, Istanbul, or Cologne? The social, class-related, political, and lifestyle contrasts between Iranian communities in different parts of the world show that the concept of “culture,” like “memory” and “identity,” is transformed and fragmented in exile.
I believe that although we all speak Persian in Iran, Los Angeles, Paris, and Cologne, we cannot understand each other due to cultural differences, because our experiences have loaded words with different meanings. The Iranian who has just come from Iran and has been forced to learn to speak between the lines, with codes that only insiders understand, will certainly not be able to communicate with someone who grew up in Germany and is not accustomed to this way of conversation, let alone work collectively.
8. The Role of the Second Generation: New Voice, Living Memory
In their works, migration is no longer just a displacement but a question of identity, representation, and possibilities of cultural coexistence. The art of the second generation is sometimes more compatible with the language and form of the present. Through familiarity with new media and digital technologies, they can tell their stories on platforms that were less accessible to the first generation.
The second generation is capable not only of experiencing hybrid identities but also of consciously shaping them artistically, thus creating new aesthetic languages that reflect both the heritage of their origins and the experience of migration.
The second generation can also play a mediating role between cultures. They can function as translators not only of words but of experiences, values, and perspectives, thus contributing to a deeper intercultural understanding.
9. Film Continues to Resist
Despite all these challenges, film, perhaps more than any other art, has the power to build bridges. Film can capture an image of what has been lost, share it, and lead the viewer, if only for a moment, to an experience of the “Other.”
Film, unlike politics, can cross borders. Unlike official documents, it can record a poetic truth. And unlike mainstream media, it can show a new angle on the life of a migrant, exile, or refugee – as they see it themselves, not as is expected of them.
10. Questions for the Continuing Journey
This text has attempted to cast a multi-layered look at the relationship between migration, exile, flight, and art. Yet fundamental questions remain:
- If art is born in exile, can returning be its end or its transformation?
- Are the stories that are heard necessarily the most accurate or authentic? Or are they those that better fit into the framework of global expectations?
- If many narratives are ignored, what happens when silence itself becomes an artistic expression?
- What is the role of the audience in this cycle? Are we merely consumers of pain, or can we become co-narrators?
- Does the experience of migration and exile lead to the formation of a new artistic language that would not be possible without this experience?
- What is the difference between the artworks of the first and second generations of migrants, and can one speak of an “inheritance of exile”?
- Has the concept of “exile” in art changed with the spread of communication technologies and virtual spaces?
- Can exile art contribute to political change in the homeland, or does it merely reflect it?
- How can an artist in exile preserve their cultural identity without falling into the trap of stereotype creation or self-Orientalization?
The answer to these questions is not easy, but perhaps their formulation is the first step toward an honest dialogue between us, and across the borders that still exist in our minds and our language.
11. Conclusion: Art That Knows No Borders
Ultimately, although migration, exile, and flight are painful experiences, art in dealing with them can be a bridge between past and present, between the “lonely I” and the “we.” Art can be a form of resistance or a remedy.
Art in exile tells stories that do not fit within official borders. In this realm, artworks are like ships that move between countries and transport cultural cargo from one shore to another. The exiled artist functions as a translator between two worlds – not just a translator of language, but a translator of lived experiences, pains, hopes, and dreams.
We are witnessing the emergence of a generation of artists who are neither “there” nor “here,” but live in an in-between space that is rich in possibilities yet has its own specific pains and sufferings. Whether by choice or necessity, they create art through the fusion of different traditions, languages, and narratives that transcends traditional boundaries and offers a new perspective on “being human.”
Perhaps the ultimate achievement of art in exile is that it reminds us that concepts such as “homeland”, “home,” and “belonging” can be redefined. In today’s fragile and fluid world, home is not just a geographic place, but a mental and spiritual space that we carry with us and express in our art.
And perhaps it is in this movement, in this transition, in this “placelessness,” that we find home within ourselves more than ever before.
Ali Samadi Ahadi,
April 13, 2025
