Filmmaker Farzad Samsami was born in Iran, lives in Norway and will shoot his debut feature Zarzis later this year in Morocco, with the support of the Norwegian Film Institute. “I’m glad we’re pushing the boundaries of what we can call Norwegian stories,” Samsami says. “Things are changing so fast, allowing more voices to come up. The way we look at what is a typical Norwegian film can change. I see that as a strengthening of the whole Norwegian film industry.”

Zarzis is not the only film with a less fair-haired, blue-eyed version of Nordic storytelling: at this year’s Berlinale, Iranian-Swedish-Danish filmmaker Milad Alami premiered Opponent, a story about an Iranian refugee in Sweden grappling with his past; and Korean-Danish filmmaker Malene Choi told a powerful story of transnational adoption in The Quiet Migration. Somali-Finnish filmmaker Khadar Ayderus Ahmed brought his first feature The Gravedigger’s Wife to Cannes in 2021 (it became Somalia’s first-ever Oscar submission).

Samsami moved to Norway when he was nine, and started making films as part of an amateur film club before directing his first professional short film Foad in 2013, backed by the Norwegian Film Institute. “If it wasn’t for the film institute, I don’t think I would be where I am now. The institute has supported me, and the films I make are not the easiest ones to get up and going,” says Samsami, who now has $680,000 (nok7.2m) in production grants through the institute’s Neo talent scheme for Zarzis.

The feature will shoot from Sept­ember in a coastal town in Morocco. “I wanted to explore these coastal towns in North Africa which are dealing with a refugee crisis, and also fisherman impacted by the environmental crisis,” says Samsami, who had already shot some of his shorts in Morocco and felt a connection to the people there. “I have to follow my heart with the stories I want to tell. For me, it’s important to showcase people whose stories haven’t been told before, or haven’t been told in this way before.”

Read more

Filmmaker Farzad Samsami was born in Iran, lives in Norway and will shoot his debut feature Zarzis later this year in Morocco, with the support of the Norwegian Film Institute. “I’m glad we’re pushing the boundaries of what we can call Norwegian stories,” Samsami says. “Things are changing so fast, allowing more voices to come up. The way we look at what is a typical Norwegian film can change. I see that as a strengthening of the whole Norwegian film industry.”

Zarzis is not the only film with a less fair-haired, blue-eyed version of Nordic storytelling: at this year’s Berlinale, Iranian-Swedish-Danish filmmaker Milad Alami premiered Opponent, a story about an Iranian refugee in Sweden grappling with his past; and Korean-Danish filmmaker Malene Choi told a powerful story of transnational adoption in The Quiet Migration. Somali-Finnish filmmaker Khadar Ayderus Ahmed brought his first feature The Gravedigger’s Wife to Cannes in 2021 (it became Somalia’s first-ever Oscar submission).

Samsami moved to Norway when he was nine, and started making films as part of an amateur film club before directing his first professional short film Foad in 2013, backed by the Norwegian Film Institute. “If it wasn’t for the film institute, I don’t think I would be where I am now. The institute has supported me, and the films I make are not the easiest ones to get up and going,” says Samsami, who now has $680,000 (nok7.2m) in production grants through the institute’s Neo talent scheme for Zarzis.

The feature will shoot from Sept­ember in a coastal town in Morocco. “I wanted to explore these coastal towns in North Africa which are dealing with a refugee crisis, and also fisherman impacted by the environmental crisis,” says Samsami, who had already shot some of his shorts in Morocco and felt a connection to the people there. “I have to follow my heart with the stories I want to tell. For me, it’s important to showcase people whose stories haven’t been told before, or haven’t been told in this way before.”

Read more