Mahshad Afshar

Mahshad Afshar (b. Isfahan, Iran) is a filmmaker, visual artist, and researcher living and working in London. Her work mostly draws on the aesthetic of painful otherness, body, memory, and politicised identity. Coming from a multidisciplinary background, she studied in various fields including computer software engineering(BSc) and Arts and Heritage Management (MA) before finding her way to filmmaking. She received a scholarship from London Film School and graduated from in Filmmaking/Directing with an MA in 2014 and continued her research interests in the same field with an MPhil in Film and Television Studies at Brunel University London, and a Ph.D. in Film Studies at Kingston University, London. She has received numerous scholarships and studentships including the prestigious Creative Skillset Film bursary (2011), London Metropolitan Bursary (2009), and KSA Studentship (2017). Her debut co-directing experience, Cul-de-Sac (2010) portrays the challenges of an Iranian homosexual woman in exile. With a broad reception by the International press and media, it was screened at twenty-three international film festivals, as well as at Amnesty International and many other human rights and women's rights organisations. In her narrative short film Five (2017), Afshar focuses on the post-traumatic experience of an Iranian ex-political prisoner who is trying to cope with life in exile. The film is currently circulating at international film festivals and has already received nominations at three festivals. In her most recent documentary and film essay project, Women on Both Sides of the Camera (2018), Afshar questions the idea of the female gaze by addressing how Iranian female filmmakers represent female identity on the screen. Afshar is a cultural and political activist with research interests in the areas of Feminist Film Theory, Gaze and Screen Representations of Gender & Sexuality. She is currently collaborating with organisations that use the arts as a means to build solidarity, dialog, and spread peace across cultures.