Experiencing Interruptions?

pal/imp/sest

[a revisitation of a visitation]

A choir of witnesses revisit a disrupted mourning session. The polyphonic narration oscillates between personal and found footage of how grief rituals manifest. Delving into a series of ruptures, possessions, and dispossessions is a geopoetic witnessing of colliding and entangled histories, traumas, and bodies through unfolding violence on Onondaga land, Afghanistan, and Gaza.

  • Zelikha Shoja
    Director
  • Zelikha Shoja
    Writer
  • Zelikha Shoja
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Student
  • Genres:
    Video Essay, experimental, documentary
  • Runtime:
    32 minutes 38 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    April 3, 2024
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Language:
    English, Persian
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    Yes - Syracuse University
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Nancy Cantor Warehouse Gallery
    Syracuse
    United States
  • Novado Gallery
    Jersey City
    United States
  • Lightbeams Under a Bridge, Vol. 7
    London
    United Kingdom
    International Premiere
  • Twin Cities Arab Film Fest
    Saint Paul
    United States
    September 25, 2024
    North American Premiere
  • Close Up Film Festival
    Port Moody
    Canada
    November 9, 2024
    Canadian Premiere
  • MENA Film Festival
    Vancouver
    Canada
    January 27, 2025
    Canadian Premiere
    Runner-Up for Buraq Award, Best Short
Director Biography - Zelikha Shoja

Zelikha Zohra Shoja is a U.S.-based Afghan artist, researcher, and gham-khoor* living/working on unceded Onondaga land (Syracuse, New York). 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 and art have participated in international and national microcinemas, film festivals, and arts institutions including Goethe-Institut (Almaty and Tashkent), Kunsthalle Exnergasse (Vienna upcoming), Millennium Film Workshop (New York), National Art Gallery — The Palace (Sofia), New Wight Gallery (Los Angeles), silent green Kulturquartier (Berlin), VIFF Centre (Toronto), among others.

Most recently, Zelikha is a recipient of the 2024-25 Fulbright U.S. Student Award pursuing creative research in Central Asia and Türkiye.

*Persian phrase for "grief eater"

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