Land of Dreams

September 30, 2022 - 7:30 pm

Billy Wilder Theater

STANDBY ONLY

In-person: directors Shirin Neshat and Shoja Azari, actor Robin Bartlett, composer Michael Brook.

U.S., 2021

In the near future, the U.S. Census Bureau collects the dreams of Americans as part of its official demographic survey and when Simin (Sheila Vand), an Iranian immigrant with the Bureau, displays a knack for earning her subjects’ trust, she’s given a special assignment. With Matt Dillon playing her guide and bodyguard, Simin journeys across the American West and deep into the American subconscious. The first English-language film by internationally acclaimed visual artist Shirin Neshat, Land of Dreams is also, in her own words, one of her most personal works. A visual artist herself, Simin photographs her interviewees and later performs as them for an art project that echoes Neshat’s own explorations of diasporic identity. Working with Shoja Azari, who co-directed and co-wrote the screenplay with frequent Luis Buñuel collaborator Jean-Claude Carrière (The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, Belle de Jour), Neshat draws out the surreality of the American landscape as she explores the contrasts and contradictions of her adopted home through visually arresting tableau.

DCP, color, in Persian and English with English subtitles, 113 min. Director: Shirin Neshat, Shoja Azari. Screenwriters: Jean-Claude Carrière, Shoja Azari. With: Sheila Vand, Matt Dilllon, William Moseley, Isabella Rossellini.

Part of:  Looking Within, Not Without: The Films of Shirin Neshat

Born in Iran and based in New York, visual artist Shirin Neshat has explored the dualities of diasporic identity as an Iranian woman living in the West across multiple disciplines, including photography, video, theater and film for over 30 years. The focus of a recent career retrospective at The Broad (Shirin Neshat: I Will Greet the Sun Again), Neshat has been featured in solo exhibitions at museums and galleries around the world with her works included in the collections of the Tate Gallery in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, to name a few. Intimately linked to her photography and video work is Neshat’s work as a filmmaker. In each of her three feature films to date, directed with her regular collaborator Shoja Azari, Neshat employs the big screen canvas to extend and deeply narrativize her representations of women contesting systems of oppression and control in a variety of spheres. The Archive is thrilled to present this two-night retrospective of Neshat’s feature films beginning with Women without Men (2009) and Looking for Oum Kulthum (2017), both of which premiered at the Venice Film Festival, and culminating in the Los Angeles premiere of her latest film, Land of Dreams, with Neshat in person at the Billy Wilder Theater.

Special thanks to our community partner: Farhang Foundation