This event marks the launch of Freedom, Only Freedom: The Prison Writings of Behrouz Boochani (translated and edited by Omid Tofighian and Moones Mansoubi, Bloomsbury Publishing). It includes a showing of Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time - a documentary film co-directed by Behrouz with filmmaker Arash Kamali Sarvestani released in 2017 and a live Q&A session.

The film was shot by Boochani from inside Australia's Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea. The whole film was shot over six months on a smartphone, which had to be kept secret from the prison authorities.

This event has been organised and funded by the Centre for the Study of Poverty and Social Justice (School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol).

Admission is free. Click here to reserve a spot.

Please note this event refers to state violence and human rights abuses and is for an adult audience.

Speakers:

Behrouz Boochani is a Kurdish-Iranian writer, journalist, scholar, cultural advocate and filmmaker. He spent over six years imprisoned in Australia’s migrant detention centre before gaining refugee status in New Zealand. His book, No Friend But The Mountains: Writing From Manus Prison won the 2019 Victorian Prize for Literature in addition to the Nonfiction category. Boochani is the co-director, along with Iranian film maker Arash Kamali Sarvestani, of the documentary Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time, has published numerous articles in leading media internationally about the plight of refugees held by the Australian government on Manus Island, and has won several awards.

Victoria Canning is head of the Centre for the Study of Poverty and Social Justice, and associate professor of Criminology at the University of Bristol. She has authored and edited seven books focusing on border harms, torture and violence including Torture and Torturous Violence (2023, BUP) and award-winning Gendered Harms and Structural Violence in the British Asylum System (2018, Routledge). She also currently acts as associate director at Border Criminologies at Oxford University, and co-chair at Statewatch.

Nariman Massoumi is a Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at the Department of Film and Television, University of Bristol and Co-ordinator of the MMB Research Challenge Representation, Belonging, Futures. His recent work includes Dear Home Office (2021), a collaborative film with refugees and asylum seekers scrutinising the UK asylum system, and Pouring Water on Troubled Oil (2023), about the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas’s journey through Iran in 1951.

Arash Kamali Sarvestani is an Iranian Dutch Filmmaker and Video Artist. Arash was born in Tehran, Iran on 1981. After two years of investigation about refugees kept by Australian government in Manus and Nauru camps Arash eventually found Behrouz Boochani when he was detained in Manus camp. Arash shared the idea with Behrouz. Chauka, Please tell us the time is a result of their cooperation.

Omid Tofighian is an award-winning lecturer, researcher and community advocate, combining philosophy with interests in citizen media, popular culture, displacement and discrimination. His published works include Myth and Philosophy in Platonic Dialogues (2016); he is the translator of Behrouz Boochani's multi-award winning book No Friend but the Mountains: Writing From Manus Prison (2018); and co-editor of Refugee Filmmaking, Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media (2019). He is co-translator and co-editor of Freedom, Only Freedom with Moones Mansoubi.

Further links and suggested reading:

Boochani, Behrouz. “Film as Folklore.” Translated by Omid Tofighian, Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, no. 18, 2019, pp. 185–187. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.18.15.

Sarvestani, Arash Kamali. “Looking for Chauka.” Translated by Omid Tofighian, Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, no. 18, 2019, pp. 188–192. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.18.16

Tofighian, Omid. “Displacement, Exile and Incarceration Commuted into Cinematic Vision.” Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, no. 18, 2019, pp. 91–106. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.18.07

Tofighian, Omid. “Chauka Calls—A Photo Essay.” Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media, no. 18, 2019, pp. 205–217. https://doi.org/10.33178/alpha.18.19.

Link to Freedom, Only Freedom: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/freedom-only-freedom-9780755642656/