Artists in residence

Mohammad Reza Zamani began his literary career in 2005 with the publication of his first short story in Asr-e Panjshanbeh magazine. Since then, he has become a recognized voice in contemporary Iranian fiction. With over two decades of storytelling experience, he has authored two critically acclaimed short story collections and contributed extensively to Iran’s literary scene through short stories, essays, literary criticism, and occasional screenwriting.

I come from a village in the small valleys of the Matmata Mountains in south-eastern Tunisia. When I was a child, people lived by rough farming, spending their days digging in the dry land and their evenings drinking tea around the fire, and the old men telling stories to the children.

The arrival of electricity allowed the arrival of television, which changed our way of life. We forgot the fire, the tea and the stories that go with it, the evenings changed colour and the stories found new storytellers.

As we saw these images, we began to feel the desire to go and see the wonderland they showed us.

Today, a good number of young people from my village work in Europe, in France, more precisely in Paris, which they discovered on a small screen in the 1990s.

Behind them, the deserted village becomes even more deserted. On the other side of the screen, Paris, immense, becomes even more immense.

The film takes place between these two spaces and will seek the meaning of the journey from one to the other.

– Saber Zammouri

After studying theatre in Tunis and making his first collective film in 2014 – MEZZOUNA APRES LA CHUTE, Saber Zammouri moved to Paris in 2017. There, he shoots a documentary and develops a fiction with his French partners.

Through history, war, migration, conquests, etc., he draws the contours of the world from this small village perched on the mountains of south-eastern Tunisia.

His work transforms his village into a cosmos.

Originally from Raiatea in French Polynesia, Mathilde Zampieri first gained recognition in the world of high-level windsurfing before transitioning to filmmaking.

Trained at the renowned Kourtrajmé film school, she quickly made her mark in the cinematic world. Her short films have been officially selected for numerous international festivals and have been showcased in Hollywood, as well as at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Currently, she is focused on developing her next film, continuing her creative journey at the intersection of sport and cinema.

Malte Zander (born in 1991, Germany) is an artist and filmmaker living and working in Vienna, Austria. He studied Painting in the class of Henning Bohl at the University of Applied Arts Vienna and Film at Le Fresnoy – Studio national des arts contemporains. 

Combining computer-generated imagery with film and canvas, he creates moving image as well as freeze-frame works. His narrative environments are often times spatially and temporally constructed over the range of several exhibitions in reference to online image culture and cinematic storytelling.

In 2019 he was awarded the Kunsthalle Wien Prize for his graduation exhibition Torpor. For his solo show at Kunsthalle Vienna, he developed the large-scale film installation Languor.

His work has been shown at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, La Casa Encendida, Plug In ICA, Exile Gallery and Gärtnergasse among others.