Shahi Derky

I graduated with an MA in Linguistics and Arabic-English-French translation in France where I’m currently based. I also studied filmmaking at the Academy of Moving People and Images’ first generation program of 2019 where I made my first short film “Leftovers”. The film was selected at Tampere Film Festival’s national competition and Diaspora Film Festival – Istanbul’s international competition and shown in different curated events in Europe. I collaborated with two other directors, Aishe Vejdani and Uzair Amjad in a short film of three episodes curated by Elham Rahmati called “Because They Were Three, They Were Four”.

An essay that I wrote about my 2014 Syrian school in Turkey experience was published in No Niin Magazine titled “Temporary Peace” in 2021. I also worked as a co-curator in the Finnish Institute in Paris as well as the French Institute in Helsinki. Currently I’m working on the next feature film and a short film project for the upcoming year.  During my stay at Saari residency, I will be writing my first feature film, exploring themes of youth, change, exile and freedom. In this two-months period I would like to exchange with the other artists about their different disciplines and approaches and see where we all intersect. I tend to take into consideration the collective memory of a group of people while mixing image and language into the film medium.