Film and Theatre in Iran

Roxana Vilk delivers a personal account of making theatre and film in Iran.

Roxana originally trained in theatre at the Lecoq School in Paris and then went on to receive a Masters in Fine Art specialising in Film from the Edinburgh College of Art. She frequently works cross art form. She has made theatre and films across the world, most recently  in Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Bosnia Herzegovina, France and Norway. Her film ‘Tehran Backyard’ was nominated for a Royal Television Award, and won best film at the Next Frame film festival in the US. She co-wrote the drama feature film ‘Trouble Sleeping’ which won a Scottish BAFTA award. In 2013 Roxana directed a large scale site specific promenade performance with a cast of over 80 performers and musicians through the Botanical Gardens of Edinburgh, based on the 11th Century Persian text of Farid Al Din Attar’s Conference of the Birds.

In 2012 she directed and produced a six part TV series called ‘Poets of Protest’ for Al Jazeera English Artscape series, looking at the Arab spring through the eyes of poets from the region and creating experimental filmic interpretations of their words. Most recently she was commissioned by Reel Festivals, British Council and Literature without Frontiers to create experimental short films in response to the words of Iraqi poets, filmed in Iraq in 2013. In 2014 she made a new film for the BBC called Iranian Enough? exploring cultural identity through a personal story. She was commissioned by the Commonwealth Year of Culture to make 8 artistic films for the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. She is singer and co-producer with the band GOL. In 2014 she was nominated for a Margaret Tait Award for her artistic work. Roxana is represented by Jo Probitts Arts Management. For more information please go to www.roxanavilk.com