Screening with the Filmmaker: The Dawn Is Too Far with Persis Karim

We’re honored to welcome filmmaker Persis Karim for an in-person Q&A following the screening — an opportunity to hear directly about the making of the film and the stories it brings to light.

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Title: The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life

Release Date: Fall 2024

Country: USA

Age: 12A

Genre: Documentary

Feature Runtime: 55:21 minutes

Co-Directors: Persis Karim and Soumyaa K. Behrens

Co-Producers: Persis Karim and Soumyaa K. Behrens

Executive Producer: Persis Karim

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The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life poetically narrates the story of a community of Iranian Americans who have made the San Francisco Bay Area their home over the past five decades. The film seeks to expand our understanding of Iranian immigration — what it means to leave home and country — and live through the episodes of turbulent histories of dissent, revolution, war, and separation — and reinvent oneself in a new place, country, and culture.

The Dawn is Too Far does not paint a story of salvation and happy assimilation, but rather seeks to identify the complex ways that members of the Bay Area's Iranian diaspora community have navigated the challenges and traumas of history—both Iranian and American — to reinvent themselves and tell their own stories; these as yet untold stories build on a longer history of Iranian immigration to Northern California, where Iranians as students, activists, artists, draw on as well as influence the larger culture of the Bay Area. This community and all that it has faced, offers a more nuanced story of the Iranian diaspora—the ways that this community enriches and enlivens the region where they live, work, and build families and community.

The Dawn is Too Far undermines the tired and overplayed news headlines that are dominated by narratives of enmity and mistrust between the government of Iran and the U.S., to offer a more humane understanding of how people's lives and the sacrifices they make are part of the larger story of immigration.

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Persis Karim is a scholar, writer, and filmmaker teaching in the Department of Humanities and Comparative and World Literature at San Francisco State University. Until recently, she served as the founding director of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at SFSU, where she led research, programming, and public engagement focused on the global Iranian diaspora. She is the editor of three anthologies of Iranian diaspora literature and has published numerous scholarly articles on Iranian diaspora literature and culture, as well as poetry and essays in non-academic outlets. The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life is her first film, reflecting her commitment to documenting and sharing the layered histories and personal narratives of the Iranian diaspora.

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