Farsi left Iran in 1984 and went to Paris to study mathematics. However, eventually she was drawn to the visual arts and initially experimented in photography before making her first short films. A main theme of her works is identity. She can not return to Iran since 2009 due to her films and her activism against the iranian regime. To this day, all of Farsi's films have been banned in Iran by the regime. [1]
One of her latest films is called Tehran Bedun-e Mojavvez (Tehran Without Permission). The 83-minute documentary shows life in Iran's crowded capital city of Tehran, facing international sanctions over its nuclear ambitions and experiencing civil unrest. It was shot entirely with a Nokiacamera phone because of the government restrictions over shooting a film. The film shows various aspects of city life including following women at the hairdressers talking of the latest fads, young men speaking of drugs, prostitution and other societal problems, and the Iranian rapper “Hichkas”. The dialogue is in Persian with English and Arabic subtitles.[2] In December 2009, Tehran Without Permission was shown at the Dubai International Film Festival.[3]
In February 2023, Farsi's first animated feature, The Siren (La Sirène), premiered as the opening film of the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival's Panorama section.[4] The film, following a boy in the port of Abadan in 1980 during the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, won Best Animated Film at the 16th Asia Pacific Screen Awards in the Gold Coast, Australia, in November 2023.[5]
