LAYERS2020

Directed by: BITA SHAFIPOUR

Starring: HADI SALEHI

Produced by: BITA SHAFIPOUR & CHRIS BOYD

Director of Photography: HANA KITASEI

Short Synopsis:

Layers is a cinematic documentary about the visual poetry of Hadi Salehi’s analogue photo art. Through a series of captivating conversations with the artist, and an exploration of his experimental process, award-winning director Bita Shafipour taps into Hadi’s layers of consciousness and maps out a visual narrative of the creativity that shapes his rich and diverse body of work.

U S A 2 5 m i n u t e s

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Bita Shafipour is an award-winning Iranian-American writer, director and producer. Her 2006 Iranian short THE COLOR OF FRIEND was premiered at LA ShortFest and nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at Miami ShortFest. Her BAFTA winning film LAST NIGHT IN EDINBURGH was premiered at Palm Springs ShortFest, won the Best Director Award at Seattle Short Film Fest, Best Narrative Film Award at Global Cinema Film Festival Boston, and the Empowering Women Award at the Socially Relevant Film Fest. It was also part of LA Opera’s Eurydice Festival in early 2020.

A member of the British Academy of Film and TV Arts and Alliance of Women Directors, she is the founder of Socially Conscious Arts and holds her BA in Cinematic Arts from USC and a postgraduate degree in screenwriting from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. She has taught Directing at UCLA Extension and Edinburgh Napier University. She is currently a lecturer at the University of Southern California and has feature narrative films in development with Sobini Films.

BITA SHAFIPOURDirector

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Hadi Salehi was born in northern Iran near the Caspian Sea. He started taking pictures in his early teens with a Russian Lubitel, which he still owns today. He graduated from Tehran University and received a grant to study film in the United States. Upon arrival in Los Angeles in early 80s, Hadi found the social climate not all that welcoming for Iranian immigrants during the Hostage Crisis and had to take many odd jobs while pursuing his art. Around the same time, Hadi discovered The Clash’s music and the burgeoning L.A. Punk scene, which he drew inspiration from. He picked up his camera and started documenting the shows, as well as graffiti and Chicano rights demonstrations. This eventually got Hadi noticed, and he was recruited by the ArtCenter of Design in Pasadena to teach analog photography.

Hadi was known for taking cameras apart just to manipulate the shot or pull apart the emulsion to deconstruct and reconstruct the image. He found that he wanted to push the limits of the conventional approach to photography. This unique attitude led to acceptance from another band of outsiders: surfers. Hadi spent the next decade travelling and shooting exclusively some of the most prolific surfers of the era and worked with a number of well-known surfing lifestyle brands. He subsequently travelled across the globe capturing amazing images of people and their daily lives. Eventually he made the first of many photography inspired trips back to his native Iran to document his roots.

Hadi’s work is diverse but retains a common element that makes it recognizably his. His portraits are both powerful and soft, with a haunting quality that lingers in the psyche. His career now spans almost forty years. He has photographed a number of cultural innovators up close, including Keith Haring, Tricky, Rob Machado, Kelly Slater, Martin Potter, Derek Ho, Brock Little, Dave Alvin, Questlove, and The Dead Kennedys. His client base includes Adidas, Billabong, Gotcha!, Sony, TOOL, Nike, and the Los Angeles Times magazine.

Salehi is represented by ADVOCARTSY gallery in Los Angeles. His work has been acquired by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as part of the permanent collection at Art of the Middle East Contemporary.

Hadi Salehi

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CREDITS:Director: Bita Shafipour

Participant:Hadi Salehi

Produced by: SOCIARTS Productions LLC in association with ADVOCARTSY

Producers: Bita ShafipourChris Boyd

Executive Producers: Bita Shafipour Roshi Rahnama

Editor & Visual Designer:Amir Arzanian

Composer:Bahar Royaee

Production Designer: Andrew Soliman

Supervising Sound Editor: Mehrnaz Mohabati

TECHNICAL SPECS:Aspect Ratio: 4:3

Color Space:Color and B&W

Sound Mix: Stereo