Grainy Pixel
Amin Pakparvar
Film maker and researcher
Contacts: apakpa@saic.edu
pakparvar.amin@gmail.com
Mehraneh Salimian
Film maker and researcher
Contacts: msalim1@saic.edu
mehrane.salimian@gmail.com
Amin Pakparvar is an Iranian documentary filmmaker and film critic studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He has created several short films, including Death and the Dragon (2020) and Height of the Kite (2024), that address racial and gender discrimination, state violence, and environmental crises in contemporary Iranian history. These films have been screened at several Oscar-qualifying film festivals in Iran, Africa, and the U.S. Amin’s writings on the subjects, languages, and aesthetics of Middle Eastern cinema focus on visual anthropology through an intersectional feminist lens.
Mehraneh Salimian is an Iranian filmmaker, editor, and writer based in Chicago, working across documentary, video installation, and fiction film. With experience in 16mm film, her practice centers on the concept of the counter-archive, particularly in Iran, where she creates alternative narratives to challenge dominant historical accounts. Her work engages with themes of memory, unrecorded histories, and political erasure. Her short documentary Height of the Kite (2024) has been featured at Oscar-qualifying film festivals worldwide and received the Best Art Piece award from the Working Artist Organization in Tacoma, WA. Mehraneh holds an MFA in Film, Video, and New Media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.