Forough Farrokhzad's The House is Black Is Free to View Alongside Poetry, Art, and Activism at Media City Film Festival

A bounty of virtual film screenings, poetry, audio, video-work, art, and activist writing is at Media City Film Festival's Dark Dark Gallery, worth an immediate visit if you're a fan of Forough Farrokhzad, Audre Lorde, Simone Leigh, or Cauleen Smith, to start. The format for viewing is unique, carrying us through "a space where filmmakers, curators, and other practitioners can explore concepts and thematic exhibitions that connect with the history of experimental cinema and contemporary moving image art." This online version of the exhibit Radical Acts of Care is curated by Greg de Cuir Jr. and co-organized and designed by Oona Mosna.

Iranian poet Farrokhzad's short film, The House is Black (1962), is rarely seen, placed here next to Madeline Anderson's I Am Somebody (1970), which "visualizes the struggle of unionized hospital workers in South Carolina who demonstrate on the streets for improved labor conditions." De Cuir Jr. contemplates such intersections in his prologue:

“Power,” a poem by Audre Lorde, opens with the following lines: “The difference between poetry and rhetoric / is being ready to kill / yourself / instead of your children.” This is certainly a distinction with resonance in this calamitous twenty-first century. Here is another poetic proposition with timeless relevance, from Folio 31a of the Babylonian Talmud: “That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is commentary. Go study.” Because the aspiration to knowledge and understanding of your fellow human beings is the most radical act of all. 

Farrokhzad's poem, "The Gift," is gently published here, accompanying a recording of "Power." Take it all in at Dark Dark Gallery.