Author Hamed Sarrafi & Ehsan Zivaralam

Hamed Sarrafi & Ehsan Zivaralam

Hamed Sarrafi is a UK-based film critic, translator, and podcaster. For more than 27 years, he has written and translated for Iranian newspapers and film journals. He served as a guest editor for Senses of Cinema and is the host of the long-running Persian-language podcast Abadiat Va Yek Rooz (Eternity and a Day), where he reviews films and international film festivals and conducts in-depth interviews with filmmakers and critics. His work is particularly concerned with emerging filmmakers and the social and political dimensions of contemporary cinema. His interviews have been published in Cineaste, Notebook (MUBI), Cinema Without Borders, and Senses of Cinema. Ehsan Zivaralam is a PhD candidate in theatre history at Clermont Auvergne University. He holds an MA in Dramatic Literature from the University of Art in Tehran, where he previously taught theatre history and criticism. His research focuses on early Persian dramatic texts and the political and social dimensions of ta'zieh, the traditional Iranian theatrical form that is the subject of his doctoral dissertation. He has published research in Iranian journals and also works as a writer and translator. His broader interests include interdisciplinary approaches to dramatic literature, particularly its intersections with mathematics and physics.

Reimagining History from Within: An Interview with Wael Shawky

Hamed Sarrafi & Ehsan Zivaralam

July 2026

Interviews

Several months ago, as Israel and the United States launched military strikes against Iran, I found myself searching for a way to escape the relentless cycle of anxiety, grief, and uncertainty that had come to ...