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An In-Person Screening Event
BILLY WILDER THEATER - HAMMER MUSEUM
Los Angeles

Land of dreams

September 30, 2022

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 the Los Angeles premiere of her latest film, Land of Dreams, with Neshat in person at the Billy Wilder Theater.

This screening is part of Looking Within, Not Without: The Films of Shirin Neshat at the Hammer.

Farhang Foundation is a proud community partner.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 - 7:30 PM

LAND OF DREAMS

U.S. 2021

Los Angeles Premiere

In person: Shirin Neshat

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 Buńuel 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
Featuring: Sheila Vand, Matt Dilllon, William Moseley, Isabella Rossellini