To Swallow the Sun - Anahita Norouzi
Anahita Norouzi ( Canada, Iran )
To Swallow the Sun is a film essay investigating the role of British Petroleum in the colonial modernization of the southwest region of Iran—from a rural area into a colonial outpost—through the exploitation of its oil reserves.
Working between speculation, historical fiction, and documentary, it explores how the landscape and built environment of the region were reshaped by extractive practices—both mineral and cultural—leaving behind a terrain marked by ruination, dispossession, and resistance. Tracing the entanglements of nature, politics, and gender in relation to extraction as a mode of domination, the film turns toward the future to imagine the region not only as a site of historical violence, but as a space for fantastical and unfathomable possibilities.
