Ayat Najafi is a multimedia artist, film and theater director, born in Tehran and based in Berlin. His focus is on interdisciplinary and multimedia theater as well as experimental short films and documentaries. His art, theater and film projects are strongly based on research and focus on gender justice, human rights, intercultural dialogue, ecological issues and everyday life. He has produced plays at Hebbel Am Ufer, Ballhaus Ost and Iranian Artists’ Forum, Tehran, among others. His two feature documentaries Football Undercover (2008) and No Land’s Song (2014) were shown at more than a hundred international festivals and won numerous awards. His latest feature film The Sun Will Rise (2023) premiered at the Biennale di Venezia – Cinema as the opening film of the Giornate degli Autori. In 2017, he co-founded ARTA ATELIER BERLIN, which creates hybrid experiential spaces through inter- and transdisciplinary thinking and projects. He was co-creator of the collective art project SANDSTORM – And Then There Was DUST. This ecological and long-term project aimed to create hybrid experiential spaces through inter- and transdisciplinary thinking and production. The exhibition presenting the results of the project opened in September 2020 at Depo Istanbul with artists from Iran, Iraq and Turkey and followed in fall 2021 at Galerie im Körnerpark Berlin.
