Shaereh

After a life in Iran shaped by protest, loss, and exile, an Iranian woman turns to Sufi whirling as an act of embodied resistance. Through ritual movement and poetic imagery, SHAEREH transforms silence into motion and personal grief into a collective vision of women’s freedom.

  • Elif Koyutürk Hazen
    Director
    Bridging the Gap, Guardians of Anatolia
  • Blake Hendrix
    DP
    Tara
  • Shaereh Shakti
    Key Cast
    "Herself"
  • Azam Ali
    Music
  • Elif Koyutürk Hazen
    Writer
    Bridging the Gap, Guardians of Anatolia
  • Project Title (Original Language):
    شاعره
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short
  • Genres:
    Experimental, drama, dance, poetry, women, spiritual, political
  • Runtime:
    6 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    March 12, 2026
  • Production Budget:
    10,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Iran, Türkiye
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    Faroese
  • Shooting Format:
    RED
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Elif Koyutürk Hazen

Elif Koyutürk Hazen is a Turkish multidisciplinary filmmaker and visual artist working between documentary and poetic cinema. Rooted in immersive field research, her work explores the invisible architecture of identity, memory, and belonging across the ancient landscapes of Anatolia and Mesopotamia. Through observational and poetic storytelling, she traces how the past continues to shape the present, centering women navigating silence, power, and transformation while bringing forward voices and traditions that have been silenced or forgotten. Her award-winning documentary Bridging the Gap has screened at festivals internationally, and her short Peaks of Belonging received the 5Point STIO Grant. Her latest film Guardians of Anatolia is supported by the Mountainfilm Emerging Filmmaker Fellowship. She is developing The Story of the Lost Goddess, a series examining how systems of power reshaped female authority from prehistory to today.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

SHAEREH began as a question: What does freedom feel like in the body?

At a time when Iranian women are risking their lives for autonomy, I did not want to make a film about politics. I wanted to make a film about embodiment. About what happens when a woman reclaims motion after generations of inherited silence.

Shaereh’s whirl is resistance. It is grief metabolized into breath. It is a quiet revolution that begins within and radiates outward.

The film unfolds through ritual gestures splitting a pomegranate, crumbling stone, rising from sand and through collective movement. The circle of women is essential. Freedom is not solitary. It expands when shared.

I was drawn to minimalism: wind, fabric, dust, breath. The desert became both witness and mirror. The camera moves in spirals because healing is not linear.

SHAEREH is a visual prayer.

For the bound.
For the lost.
For the found.

And for every woman who chooses to move when the world asks her to remain still.