Authors — Nick Kouhi
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Prismatic Ground 2026: Windows and Thresholds
In its sixth year, New York City’s Prismatic Ground festival doesn’t show any signs of rote predictability. Founder and programmer Inney Prakash has used the festival, which most recently took place from April 29 through May 3, to foreground global voices in the contemporary avant-garde. He likens his curatorial process to “conducting a piece of music or slaloming down a mountain,” but otherwise prefers to let the viewer parse threads and connections between the films he programs across four separate waves. It’s a galvanizing approach towards curation that remains surprising, generative, and ultimately grounding in a tumultuous moment for the […]
by Nick Kouhi on May 13, 2026 -
Dreams Deferred: How Iranian Filmmakers Pursue Liberation Under Unbearable Constraints
The people of Iran find themselves suspended in a historical moment of great uncertainty. On December 28, 2025, in the midst of a major economic crisis exacerbated in part by U.S. sanctions, shopkeepers and vendors in several commercial centers throughout the country went on strike. The protests grew larger in number, culminating in early January as Iran’s largest uprising since the 1979 Revolution. The Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) responded by imposing an internet blackout to facilitate the indiscriminate murder of protesters and civilians alike. Thousands were killed in the largest massacre in the nation’s history, and the periodic protests […]
by Nick Kouhi on Apr 2, 2026 -
The Passion of Amir Naderi
Amir Naderi is on the move. I connected with the Iranian filmmaker over WhatsApp on a chilly February morning, or at least morning where I am. He’s calling me from Rome, which is the second stop on his tour through Europe teaching classes on filmmaking. In every country he visits, he tells me, he shapes the curriculum around that nation’s cinema history. It’s a pedagogical approach that aptly reflects the cosmopolitanism of a filmmaker who has shot films in the United States, Japan, and Italy, and who hopes to potentially make a film in Australia. “If I can do it,” […]
by Nick Kouhi on Feb 23, 2026
