30th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival

23. 10.–1. 11. 2026
Log inČeštinaEnglish
Murmurs in the Distance
Murmurs in the Distance
Murmurs in the Distance

Murmurs in the Distance

Katayoon Barzegar, Behshad Tajammol, Pegah Pasalar / Germany, France, United States, Netherlands, Iran / 2026 / World Premiere / 24 min.


synopsis

Murmurs in the Distance begins with an encounter with a gap: the absence of a substantial historical and visual record of the women’s protests of March 8, 1979 in Iran. Through photographs, recordings, testimonies, and archival fragments, three artists from another generation, living in different countries, search for what has been preserved, what has disappeared, and find their own reflections along the journey. The archive becomes both a source and a place for questioning. The short documentary Iranian Women’s Liberation Movement: Year Zero (1979) offers one of the few surviving visual traces of the protests, while testimonies bring other forms of memory into the present. Rather than reconstructing a complete history, the film stays with these fragments and silences, asking how an archive shapes what can be remembered, seen, and understood as history.

“Murmurs in the Distance is not only an act of preservation but also an invitation to reimagine futures shaped by collective courage.”

Source 

biography

Katayoon Barzegar (1990), Behshad Tajammol (1992) and Pegah Pasalar (1992) are Iranian artists and filmmakers who – through archival research, sound, image and the sharing of similar backgrounds and concerns with memory, history, and embodiment – have created Murmurs in the Distance, combining their practices to reclaim silenced stories and connect past struggles to future possibilities.

film details

director: Katayoon Barzegar, Behshad Tajammol, Pegah Pasalar
producer: Behshad Tajammol, Pegah Pasalar, Katayoon Barzegar
music: Farzaneh Nouri

contact

Katayoon Barzegar, Behshad Tajammol, Pegah Pasalar
murmurs.distance.film@gmail.com

Film at festival

premiere type:World Premiere
festival edition:2026
section:Short Joy
language:English, French, Farsi
subtitles:Czech, English
colour:Colour and B&W

Info

director:Katayoon Barzegar, Behshad Tajammol, Pegah Pasalar
original title:Murmurs in the Distance
country:Germany, France, United States, Netherlands, Iran
year:2026
running time:24 min.

Section


Festival partners

Ministerstvo kultury
Fond kinematografie
Město Jihlava
Kraj Vysočina
Creative Europe Media
Pale Fire Capital
Česká televize
Český rozhlas
Respekt
Dafilms

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