Experiencing Interruptions?

demarcations; you have black eyes (cheshme siya dari)

Drawing from a song by Afghan singer Ahmad Zahir, "you have black eyes" is a stream-of-consciousness montage depicting collective bodies in a constant state of disruption, movement, processing, and grieving. It celebrates the body as a historical, domestic site of resistance through dance and movement including found footage of ants carrying flowers, rubab player Ustad Beltoon interrupted, and Hazara throat singing across an imaginary landscape.

  • Zelikha Shoja
    Director
  • Zelikha Shoja
    Writer
  • Zelikha Shoja
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Student
  • Runtime:
    9 minutes 13 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    November 30, 2023
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English, Persian
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - Syracuse University
  • Technowruz
    Brooklyn, NY
    United States
    March 21, 2023
    World Premiere
  • Millennium Film Workshop
    Brooklyn, NY
    United States
  • Strangloscope Experimental Video International Festival
    Centro Itajaí
    Brazil
    South American Premiere
  • Manlius Cinema
    Manlius, NY
    United States
  • MENA Film Festival
    Vancouver
    Canada
    Canadian Premiere
  • Youth Pastor is a Narc 2.0
    Syracuse , NY
    United States
  • Lightbeams Under a Bridge, Vol. 8
    London
    United Kingdom
    European Premiere
  • Everson Museum of Art
    Syracuse, NY
    United States
  • Almaty Underground Screening Series
    Almaty
    Kazakhstan
    March 31, 2024
    Asian Premiere
  • Mimesis Documentary Festival
    Boulder, Colorado
    United States
    August 15, 2024
  • Cactus Club Independent Film Festival
    Milwaukee
    United States
    August 9, 2024
  • silent green Kulturquartier
    Berlin
    Germany
    August 27, 2024
    German Premiere
  • MUTA VIII

    September 16, 2024
  • twelve gates arts and Philadelphia Asian Art Film Festival's Video Art Exhibition
    Philadelphia
    United States
    November 2, 2024
Director Biography - Zelikha Shoja

Zelikha Zohra Shoja is an Afghan American artist and filmmaker working primarily in single-channel non-fiction and experimental modes. She is an arts educator and gham-khoor* living/working on unceded Onondaga land (Syracuse, New York) and Piscataway land (Washington, D.C.). Her artistic practice is engaged in geopoetics, personal and collective histories of rupture, and the transmission of memory. Through gestural studies, deep listening, and ephemeral fabric books, she explores how collective experiences can be transferred, mirrored, and felt by others. She holds a BIS in Diaspora Studies from George Mason University and an MFA in Art Video from Syracuse University.

Her films have screened at the Aurora Picture Show (Houston), Everson Museum of Art (Syracuse, NY), Goethe Institute (Almaty and Tashkent), Millennium Film Workshop (New York), silent green Kulturquartier (Berlin), VIFF Centre (Toronto), among others.

She has exhibited at Governors Island (New York), National Art Gallery — The Palace (Sofia), New Wight Biennial (Los Angeles), Rhizome DC (Washington, D.C.), Worth Ryder Gallery (Berkeley), among others. Zelikha is a recipient of the Fulbright U.S. Student Award (2024-25).

*Farsi phrase for "grief eater”

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