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In its 250-year history, the United States has been enormously influenced by Iran's culture and history. Poets like Hafez and Sa'adi guided the words and thoughts of Benjamin Franklin, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, while Americans like Howard Baskerville played a critical role in the Constitutional Revolution that marked the end of the Qajar Dynasty. KHANEVADE: Portraits of Iranian Americans examines the everyday stories of the Iranians who have rebuilt their lives in the U.S., particularly in the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and contributed significantly to its civic and cultural life, while navigating questions of belonging and identity.
This program spans documentary works shaped by empathetic, quotidian portraits of Iranian American communities. Norouz: Persian Spring Festival is a revealing time capsule of the Bay Area in the 1960s, showcasing the presence of Iranian American families and communities nearly 20 years before the revolution. Maryam Kashani’s Best in the West builds upon this portrait to examine the lives of four lifelong friends who studied in the United States with humor, warmth, and bittersweetness. Armon Mahdavi’s Untitled, Jackson Heights closes the program on the present day to examine public spaces in Queens through a poignant, epistolary voiceover correspondence from a mother to her child. The in-person screening at MOMI will be followed by a discussion with filmmaker Armon Mahdavi.
KHANEVADE is curated by Nick Kouhi and is co-presented by ArteEast and Museum of the Moving Image. This program is part of the legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, which preserves and presents over 20 years of film and video programming by ArteEast. Selections from KHANEVADE will be screened in-person at 12:30pm on July 12 followed by a discussion with filmmaker Armon Mahdavi moderated by the curator. For more information about the in-person screening visit https://movingimage.org/event/khanevade-portraits-of-iranian-americans/. The full program will be screened online on artearchive.org from July 13-23, including a recorded discussion with filmmaker Persis Karim and scholar Amy Malek.
About the curator
Nick Kouhi is a programmer and film critic who's written for Filmmaker Magazine, Reverse Shot, Screen Slate, and Documentary Magazine. His previous collaboration with ArteEast was I Am From Here, I Am From There: Writers in Exile, and he has served on the screening committees of True/False and DOC NYC.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life
The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life poetically narrates the story of a community of Iranian Americans who have made the San Francisco Bay Area their home over the past five decades. The film explores Iranian immigration through turbulent histories of dissent, revolution, war, and separation, and the reinvention of identity in a new land and culture. The Dawn is Too Far highlights how Iranian students, activists, and artists have navigated displacement while drawing on and influencing Bay Area culture. This community offers a more nuanced story of the Iranian diaspora—the ways that this community enriches the region where they live, work, and build families. The Dawn is Too Far undermines the tired and overplayed news headlines that are dominated by narratives of enmity and mistrust between the government of Iran and the U.S., to offer a more humane understanding of the how people's lives and the sacrifices they make are part of the larger story of immigration.
About the filmmaker
Persis Karim is the former director of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University, where she also taught the Department of Humanities and Comparative and World Literature from 2017-2025. Since 1999, she has been actively working to expand the field of Iranian Diaspora Studies, beginning with the first anthology of Iranian diaspora writing she co-edited, A World Between: Poems, Short Stories and Essays by Iranian-Americans. She is the editor of two other anthologies of Iranian diaspora literature: Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora, and Tremors: New Fiction by Iranian-American Writers. Before directing the Center at San Francisco State, she was a professor of English & Comparative Literature at San Jose State where she was the founder and director of the Persian Studies program, and coordinator of the Middle East Studies minor. She has published numerous articles about Iranian diaspora literature and culture for academic publications including Iranian Studies, Comparative Studies of South Asian, African and Middle East Studies (CSSAMES), and MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States. “The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life,” is her first film project (co-directed and co-produced with Soumyaa Behrens). She retired from San Francisco State University in fall 2025.
- Year2024
- Runtime55 minutes
- GenreDocumentary Feature
- DirectorPersis Karim
- ProducerPersis Karim
- Co-ProducerSoumyaa Kapil Behrens
- CastParviz Shokat, Bella Warda, Taraneh Hemami, Nazy Kaviani, Goli Mohebbi, Mokhtar Paki, Hanif Sadr, Torange Yeghiazarian
- CinematographerSoumyaa Kapil Behrens
- EditorCorey Ohama
- AnimatorJeffrey Higuera
- ComposerArdalan Payvar
In its 250-year history, the United States has been enormously influenced by Iran's culture and history. Poets like Hafez and Sa'adi guided the words and thoughts of Benjamin Franklin, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, while Americans like Howard Baskerville played a critical role in the Constitutional Revolution that marked the end of the Qajar Dynasty. KHANEVADE: Portraits of Iranian Americans examines the everyday stories of the Iranians who have rebuilt their lives in the U.S., particularly in the wake of the 1979 Iranian Revolution, and contributed significantly to its civic and cultural life, while navigating questions of belonging and identity.
This program spans documentary works shaped by empathetic, quotidian portraits of Iranian American communities. Norouz: Persian Spring Festival is a revealing time capsule of the Bay Area in the 1960s, showcasing the presence of Iranian American families and communities nearly 20 years before the revolution. Maryam Kashani’s Best in the West builds upon this portrait to examine the lives of four lifelong friends who studied in the United States with humor, warmth, and bittersweetness. Armon Mahdavi’s Untitled, Jackson Heights closes the program on the present day to examine public spaces in Queens through a poignant, epistolary voiceover correspondence from a mother to her child. The in-person screening at MOMI will be followed by a discussion with filmmaker Armon Mahdavi.
KHANEVADE is curated by Nick Kouhi and is co-presented by ArteEast and Museum of the Moving Image. This program is part of the legacy program Unpacking the ArteArchive, which preserves and presents over 20 years of film and video programming by ArteEast. Selections from KHANEVADE will be screened in-person at 12:30pm on July 12 followed by a discussion with filmmaker Armon Mahdavi moderated by the curator. For more information about the in-person screening visit https://movingimage.org/event/khanevade-portraits-of-iranian-americans/. The full program will be screened online on artearchive.org from July 13-23, including a recorded discussion with filmmaker Persis Karim and scholar Amy Malek.
About the curator
Nick Kouhi is a programmer and film critic who's written for Filmmaker Magazine, Reverse Shot, Screen Slate, and Documentary Magazine. His previous collaboration with ArteEast was I Am From Here, I Am From There: Writers in Exile, and he has served on the screening committees of True/False and DOC NYC.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life
The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life poetically narrates the story of a community of Iranian Americans who have made the San Francisco Bay Area their home over the past five decades. The film explores Iranian immigration through turbulent histories of dissent, revolution, war, and separation, and the reinvention of identity in a new land and culture. The Dawn is Too Far highlights how Iranian students, activists, and artists have navigated displacement while drawing on and influencing Bay Area culture. This community offers a more nuanced story of the Iranian diaspora—the ways that this community enriches the region where they live, work, and build families. The Dawn is Too Far undermines the tired and overplayed news headlines that are dominated by narratives of enmity and mistrust between the government of Iran and the U.S., to offer a more humane understanding of the how people's lives and the sacrifices they make are part of the larger story of immigration.
About the filmmaker
Persis Karim is the former director of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University, where she also taught the Department of Humanities and Comparative and World Literature from 2017-2025. Since 1999, she has been actively working to expand the field of Iranian Diaspora Studies, beginning with the first anthology of Iranian diaspora writing she co-edited, A World Between: Poems, Short Stories and Essays by Iranian-Americans. She is the editor of two other anthologies of Iranian diaspora literature: Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora, and Tremors: New Fiction by Iranian-American Writers. Before directing the Center at San Francisco State, she was a professor of English & Comparative Literature at San Jose State where she was the founder and director of the Persian Studies program, and coordinator of the Middle East Studies minor. She has published numerous articles about Iranian diaspora literature and culture for academic publications including Iranian Studies, Comparative Studies of South Asian, African and Middle East Studies (CSSAMES), and MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literatures of the United States. “The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life,” is her first film project (co-directed and co-produced with Soumyaa Behrens). She retired from San Francisco State University in fall 2025.
- Year2024
- Runtime55 minutes
- GenreDocumentary Feature
- DirectorPersis Karim
- ProducerPersis Karim
- Co-ProducerSoumyaa Kapil Behrens
- CastParviz Shokat, Bella Warda, Taraneh Hemami, Nazy Kaviani, Goli Mohebbi, Mokhtar Paki, Hanif Sadr, Torange Yeghiazarian
- CinematographerSoumyaa Kapil Behrens
- EditorCorey Ohama
- AnimatorJeffrey Higuera
- ComposerArdalan Payvar