She Goes With Her is a short animated documentary exploring the intersection between migration and queer identity, through the interwoven voices of queer Iranian women living in Toronto, most of whom are under refugee status.

Roughly 15 minutes, the film centers queer Iranian memory, experience, and imagination against ever-shifting narratives surrounding representation, cultural assimilation, western hegemony and sexual politics. The film employs an acrylic laser cutting technique which allows for the unfolding of four visceral chapters– each vignette an abstract exploration of migration, culture, gender, sex and love; highlighting how contemporary immigration attitudes and laws impact collective queer identity.

Produced and created with filmmaker Tandis Shoushtary.

The dialogue is accompanied with a light-based animation, which was achieved through a unique frame by frame laser cutting technique. Beginning with a digitally rendered animation, each individual frame of the video was then extracted, and laser cut one by one onto tinted acrylic plexiglass. The sheet is then scanned, and sequenced back together.

We traveled to Toronto, home to one of the largest queer Iranian communities, to collaborate with several Iranian women we contacted through queer organizations and personal networks, who were eager to meet and exchange experiences. We ended up recording over twelve hours of exciting conversations and dialogues together, whose words and stories later guided the storyboarding, then animation process for the film.

The first iteration of the film was made possible through the Benjamin Menschel Fellowship. The project was a finalist for the 2018 Barbara Hammer Grant. We are currently looking for further funding to finalize the project. Please reach out to aburholt@gmail.com for further inquiry on She Goes With Her.