Chooka
Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour, Ryan Ferko
22 min | 16mm to HD | Iran & Canada | 2018

In 1973, the Shah of Iran commissioned the construction of a paper factory in the lush northern province of Gilan. Foreign engineers from Canada and the United States were brought to develop and run the facility, bringing with them their families as well as a species of pine tree previously unknown to the region. Their stay, however, came to a sudden halt in 1979 with the Iranian revolution forcing them to flee the site overnight.

Chooka unfolds between the site of this factory and a rural family house located in a nearby village. Coinciding with the construction of the factory, this family hosted the production of Bahram Beyzaie’s film, The Stranger and The Fog. Shot in the same village, the film begins when an unconscious stranger drifts ashore in a small boat. After the revolution, Beyzaie returned to the same house to produce his film Bashu, The Little Stranger, about a young war refugee who escapes the south and ends up alone in a small northern village.

Returning to this landscape 40 years later, we meet the family again. It is summer and the grandfather of the family who hosted Beyzaie has passed away. His adult son is working at the paper factory while his grandson, between English classes, shows us the secret corners of his family’s house. Mediated through screens and photography, Chooka weaves original material with elements of archival documentary footage and fragments of Beyzaie’s cinema to explore the entangled relationship between a stranger and a host, a factory and a village, a film crew and a family, foreign trees and a landscape.

Commissioned by Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto (LIFT) as part of the Jacques Madvo Collection Project


<sub>Chooka, online screener | for exhibition copy & permissions please contact parastoo.faraz.ryan@gmail.com



Chooka, film stills</sub>


Screenings

• Films from Flaherty Seminar, Haverford College, Haverford, Pennsylvania, USA, Nov 2023
  
  
• Films from Flaherty Seminar, MoMA Sculpture Garden, NYC, USA, Aug 17, 2022: https://www.moma.org/calendar/events/8061

• ONLINE, Visions Microcinema and Hors Champ, Montreal, Canada, Oct 28 - Dec 31, 2020 (extended and ongoing): https://lalumierecollective.org/2020/parastoo-anoushahpour-faraz-anoushahpour-et-ryan-ferko//
  

• Thousandsuns Cinema, presented by Media City Film Festival (Online), Windsor, Canada, Dec 2 - 23, 2020: https://mediacityfilmfestival.com/thousandsuns-cinema/ 
  

• Films by Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour, & Ryan Ferko, Chrysalis Showcase, Media City Film Festival, Windsor, Canada, Feb 15, 2020: https://mediacityfilmfestival.com/chrysalis-fellowship/
  

• What the Complete Image Could Be: Works by Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour, Ryan Ferko, Microlights, Milwaukee, USA, Sept 29, 2019, info: http://microlightscinema.com/
  
  
• Eureka University Film Festival, Bogota, Columbia, Sept 15 & Sept 17, 2019, info: https://www.eurekacine.com/hom

• Festival of Fringe Film, special program curated by Christina Battle,Durham, Canada, July 20, 2019, info: http://www.fabfilmfest.ca/schedule.htm

• European Media Arts Festival (EMAF), Osnabrück, Germany, Apr 25, 2019, info: https://www.emaf.de/en/Register.html#artist-397-work-588
  

• Punto de Vista International Documentary Festival, Pamplona, Spain, Mar 11–16, 2019: http://www.puntodevistafestival.com/en/ultima_edicion.asp?IdSeccion=106

• Performance & screening, Tabakalera Centre for International Culture, San Sebastian, Spain, Mar 12, 2019, info: https://www.tabakalera.eu/en/solasaldia-3
  

• Sharjah Film Platform, Sharjah Art Foundation, U.A.E., Jan 24, 2019: http://sharjahart.org/sharjah-art-foundation/events/sharjah-film-platform-programme-23

• What the Complete Image Could Be: Works by Parastoo Anoushahpour, Faraz Anoushahpour, Ryan Ferko, Toronto International Film Festival, Wavelengths year-round programming, Dec 4, 2018: https://www.tiff.net/events/what-the-complete-image-could-be-works-by-faraz-anoushahpour-parastoo-anoushahpour-and-ryan-ferko/

• Duke University, Durham, USA, Nov 12, 2018: https://artscenter.duke.edu/event/lift-presents-the-madvo-collection-commissioning-project/

• Media City Film Festival, Windsor, Canada, Nov 10, 2018: http://mediacityfilmfestival.com/mcff23/international-competition-4/

• Viennale, Vienna, Austria, Nov 8, 2018: https://www.viennale.at/de/film/chooka

• New York Film Festival (Projections), New York City, USA, Oct 6 & 7, 2018 // Info:https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2018/films/program-3-trips-to-the-interior/
  

• Cinema Multiverse 3, curated by Ana Vaz, Lisbon, Portugal, Sept 30, 2018
  

• Edinburgh International Film Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland, Jun 26 & Jul 1, 2018: https://www.edfilmfest.org.uk/2018/chooka

• Madvo Collection Commissioning Project Screening, presented by Liaison of Independent Filmmakers of Toronto, Revue Cinema, January 23, 2018: https://lift.ca/programming-home/lift-debuts-films-from-artist-commission-the-madvo-collection/