AS IF MOTHER CRIED THAT NIGHT
Hoda Taheri, 2023, 19’
Sirvan and Hoda, an Iranian couple whose asylum application was rejected in Germany, live in a refugee camp in Berlin. In order to obtain a residence permit, they decide that Hoda should become pregnant by a German man, in order to give both of them the right to stay in Germany. As we pursue this unconventional path of getting permission to stay, we lose ourselves in the labyrinth of German bureaucracy and remain there with no solution.
Hoda Taheri, born in Tehran, Iran 1992, is an Iranian refugee artist and filmmaker based in Berlin, Germany. In 2016, she earned her bachelor’s degree in visual communication from Limkokwing University in Malaysia.
Her first short film, Mother Prays All Day Long, received a Special Mention at the Locarno Film Festival in 2022, was nominated for the German Short Film Award, and won the Best German Short Film at the Dresden Filmfest.
Her second short film, As If Mother Cried That Night, premiered at the Locarno Film Festival and was screened at the Winterthur Short Film Festival and Interfilm Berlin 2023