Stop Bundle

How do systems of power seek to control the body? These films explore the rules and obstacles that are put on the body from the state and other cultural forces.

Listed dir. by Leila Almawy
Canada | English | 14 min
Faizal Karim is a Canadian man falsely flagged on the Canadian No Fly List, a terrorist watch list under the Passenger Protect Program. Through Faizal’s personal account of racial profiling and detainment due to being falsely flagged, the film exposes the systemic issues underlying the No Fly List and its impact on marginalized communities.

250km dir. by Hasmik Movsisyan
Armenia | Armenian | 23 min
Many people don’t know about the war in Artsakh. We want the world to see what is happening. Vahe shows us real bravery, but I want to stress that we did not create this film to celebrate the notion of teenage heroes. Kids should not have to be heroes, they should just be kids. They should play, learn, and be happy—not spend their days scared or struggling.

Rizoo dir. by Azadeh Navai
Iran/USA | Farsi | 16 min
An eight-year-old Iranian girl is faced with a challenging dilemma; does she take her summer school picture wearing the hijab as her mother insists, or does she follow her own heart and showcase her long hair one last time?

Ikinji’s Stories dir. by marwa elsharkawy
Egypt | Arabic | 15 min
Old songs with cheerful meanings and tattoos of a static nature symbolize the last generation of Bedouins belonging to this form of a simple life free of any manifestations of modern technology and the fast-paced world that they didn’t go along with as if they don’t believe in it. The film narrates what remains of their stories and memories.

In the Garden of Tulips dir. by Julia Elihu
USA | Farsi | 14 min
At the height of the Iran-Iraq war, Cari takes a car ride with her father to the Iranian countryside of Birjand.

An Armenian Triptych: Retracing Our Steps dir. by Aram Bajakian, Kevork Mourad, Alan Semerdjian
Canada/USA | English | 11 min
Guitarist Aram Bajakian, painter Kevork Mourad, and writer Alan Semerdjian present individual compositions in their respective disciplines that come together in this animated short film highlighting the power of artistic collaboration as a meaning-making tool in response to intergenerational trauma and the refusal of a people to be erased from history.

Hair! dir. by Sara Jade Alfaro-Dehghani
Canada | English & Farsi | 14 min
The regular practice of hair removal, done in many expensive and painful and creative ways within middle eastern culture, combines the old with the new traditions, the ancient with the technologically advanced, and ultimately, strings together past and future generations by the very genetic material that expresses in all hairy Persian girls at one time or another.