How dare you have such a rubbish wish

Name: How dare you have such a rubbish wish
Start: 2024-05-25UTC17:00
Location: Filmoteca Española. Cine Doré. Sala 1

Mania Akbari

Iran, United Kingdom

2022

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Synopsis

Mania Akbari is too often remembered as the captivating star of Ten (Abbas Kiarostami, 2002) when in fact, she is a prolific director of such must-see films as How Dare You Have Such a Rubbish Wish. A unique journey through the history of Iranian cinema that reveals images of women always filmed by men, from the days of silent film through to the arrival of the Islamic Revolution. An image shaped by the male gaze that Akbari (exiled in London since 2012) expands on in this powerful feminist film essay, where she reclaims freedom for her and all her compatriots' bodies, for those who suffered oppression and those who today struggle to shake the foundations of a regime. Indeed, the film prelude to the "Women, Life and Liberty" movement. (JHE)

Director biography

Mania Akbari

Mania Akbari (Tehran, 1974) is an Iranian filmmaker and artist, whose works explore women's rights, marriage, sexual identity, disease, embodiment, body and trauma, body image and the body politic. In contrast to the long tradition of melodrama in Iranian cinema, her style is rooted in the visual arts and autobiography.

Mania Akbari is an internationally acclaimed artist and filmmaker. Her provocative, revolutionary and radical films were recently the subject of retrospectives at the BFI, Lon- don (2013), the DFI, Denmark (2014), Oldenburg International Film Festival, Germany (2014), Cyprus Film Festival (2014) and Nottingham Contemporary UK (2018). Her films have been screened at festivals around the world.

Akbari was exiled from Iran and currently lives and works in London, a theme addressed in Life May Be (2014), co-directed with Mark Cousins. This film was released at Karlovy Vary Film Festival and was nominated for Best Documentary at Edinburgh International Film Festival (2014) and Asia Pacific Film Festival (2014). Akbari’s latest film A Moon For My Father, made in collaboration with British artist Douglas White, premiered at CPH: DOX where it won the NEW: VISION Award 2019. The film also received a FIPRESCI International Critics Award at the Flying Broom Festival, Ankara. In 2021, she made DEAR ELNAZ a documentary in memory of PS752 that screened at HotDocs, IDFA, DOXA, and Sheffield Film Festival.

Images gallery