Arash Kamali Sarvestani

Arash Kamali Sarvestani is an Iranian Dutch Filmmaker and Video Artist. Arash was born in Tehran, Iran on 1981. He has studied Cinema in Art University of Teheran. In 2009 he moved to the Netherlands to study Video Art in Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. He has graduated on 2013 and he is living in the Netherlands since then. February 2015 he has participated in Abbas Kiarostami’s workshop in Barcelona. Besides close observation of Kiarostami’s style of film making, this event was a unique chance to know about the late artist’s character and his views about life and art. Arash made the movie “Title of essay: The sea” in Abbas Kiarostami’s workshop which has been shown in a number of festivals. The workshop coincided with the huge wave of refugees. Arash came up with the idea of making a film from inside a refugee camp. He was curious to know if it is possible to make a movie about refugees using only mobile phone cameras inside a camp that looks more like a prison. After two years of investigation about refugees kept by Australian government in Manus and Nauru camps Arash eventually found Behrooz Boochani who was (and still is) detained in Manus camp. Arash shared the idea with Behrooz. The first feature movie of Arash “Chauka, Please tell us the time” is a result of their cooperation.

As of January 2018