by
Yasi Moradi
Film Specs
Runtime: 15 minutes
Year of Completion: 2022
Country/Countries of Production: Iran
Language(s): Persian
About
Every live talk show on Iranian National Television streams with almost a 1-minute delay to provide time for the observation of the censorship committee. Guardians of a thousand years old fire are guests of a live talk show for the Persian New Year, but the show doesn't go as planned.
Yasi Moradi
WRITER, DIRECTOR & EDITOR
Yasi Moradi, born in 1991 in Iran, is a video artist, film editor, and director. She creates visually compelling narratives that captivate audiences through a fusion of cinematic language and live performance techniques. Her work has been presented at major international festivals, including Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels, Berliner Festspiele, the Epidaurus Festival in Greece, and Festival d’Automne in Paris, among others.
Her background in editing deeply informs her directing practice, enabling her to shape rhythm, pacing, and visual composition with precision and artistry. Her curiosity and experimentation with diverse camera formats and technologies have further influenced and refined her distinctive narrative style.
Artist Reflection
What inspired this film?
I had a childhood trauma that never healed, no matter how many therapy sessions I went through. Over time, it became part of my identity. The way I recognized and understood myself. I always felt that the wound inside me was so deep that if its fire ever dimmed, I would somehow cease to exist. At one point, I tried to extinguish that fire, just to see if I could survive and I realized that not only could I survive, but I could also continue living, even surrounded by illusions and lies. I was struck by how one can drift through the illusions within and around them, leave the past behind, and still find a way to go on.
What was the most challenging thing about making this film?
I personally never like to stay in just one layer of anything. I always need to think in multiple layers and from different perspectives. I believe that working with these layers of storytelling is the most challenging part of this film. Sometimes, something is happening in front of the camera while the off-screen sound carries the informative narration of the story. The real challenge for me was to show how my mind works to an audience that doesn’t see the world the way I do, without confusing them. Hopefully I can do so!
What do you hope audiences carry with them after watching?
Living under direct censorship, and later as an artist within a system that asserts control in different ways, has taught me to be deeply critical of what I see, how I interpret it and how I navigate my mind through media. It has shaped how I carry on with life and how I make the unbearable more bearable for myself. I hope I can show a spark of what our beliefs and the system’s expectations do to us.
What’s next for you?
I’m waiting for the right moment to make my first feature film, hoping a more peaceful time is just ahead for West Asian people!