Rouzbeh Rashidi

I am delighted to announce that my 2019 experimental feature-length film, Luminous Void: Docudrama, will screen at the 72nd International Short Film Festival Oberhausen on Saturday, 2 May 2026, at 8:15 p.m., as part of Travelling Companions – Beyond Omnibus Film 5, followed by a Q&A. 🎬🎟️

This screening is profoundly significant to me for many reasons. Above all, this film was the last work I made in the deepest spirit of collaboration within the Experimental Film Society. In many ways, it brought to a close twenty years of running, curating, and leading the Experimental Film Society, from its infancy in Iran to its maturity in Ireland. 🤝🎞️

With this film, alongside my wonderful colleagues, we reached the outer limits of what collaboration, film collectivism, and the artistic methods, themes, and techniques we had developed over two decades could make possible. For that reason, the occasion is both joyful and deeply emotional for me. The film remains very special in my eyes, but it also functioned as a farewell to the cinematic language and collective practice I had cultivated with the Experimental Film Society over twenty years. 🕰️🎥

Making this work was one of the greatest challenges of my career, precisely because we were testing the limits of collaboration and artistic input. It was as demanding as it was rewarding.

As always, but especially in this film, the ghost of Raúl Ruiz was ever-present. His ideas and vision of cinema profoundly shaped the emergence of this work, and the film is dedicated to him. 🌒

I am deeply grateful to the festival for programming the film, to everyone who was part of this long journey within the Experimental Film Society, and to the Arts Council of Ireland for supporting the work. 🙏

Tickets:
https://kurzfilmtage.filmchief.com/shop/tickets?v=2126

I look forward to seeing you in Oberhausen on 2 May 2026. 📍

Onwards.
oberhausen

🎬 Two August events in Dublin

This August, I will be presenting two separate events in Dublin, taking place one after the other.

1) Experimental and Personal Filmmaking — Five-Day Intensive Masterclass
📍 Dublin
📅 17–21 August 2026
🕙 10:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. daily

Organised by EFS Film School, this intensive five-day masterclass is devoted to experimental cinema as a personal, poetic, and philosophically grounded practice. Through lectures, screenings, discussions, readings, and collaborative work, the programme invites filmmakers, artists, and moving-image practitioners to think seriously about form, vision, sound, image, and radical audiovisual expression.

This is not a conventional filmmaking course, but an immersive space for those who wish to approach cinema as an art of inner necessity, formal freedom, and transformation.

🔗 Registration and full information:

efsfilmschool.com/experimental-and-personal-filmmaking

📧 [email protected]

2) Rouzbeh Rashidi: A Decade of Cinema — Lighthouse Cinema
📍 Lighthouse Cinema, Dublin
📅 22 August 2026
🕑 14:00

On the following day, I will present Rouzbeh Rashidi: A Decade of Cinema at Lighthouse Cinema. This special three-hour event takes the form of a chronological film essay on the first major phase of my filmmaking, tracing eleven feature-length works produced or co-produced in Ireland between 2009 and 2019 through the methods and production ethos of the Experimental Film Society.

Through selected excerpts and reflections, the event explores how these films came into being—artistically, philosophically, and methodologically—and will conclude with an extended audience Q&A.

⚠️ Early booking is strongly recommended.
🎟️ Tickets:

https://www.lighthousecinema.ie/film/rouzbeh-rashidi-a-decade-of-cinema