Afsun Moshiry

Afsun Moshiry was born in Shiraz, Iran, and has moved between cultures, languages, and artistic landscapes. She first immersed herself in Cultural Studies at Northumbria University in the UK, later deepening her engagement with performance and visual culture at the University of Salzburg through her studies in Curating for the Performing Arts.

In 2016, Moshiry returned to Iran from Germany with a clear intention: to build cultural bridges through cinema. During these years, she collaborated with institutions such as Berlinale Shorts, Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen, Interfilm, Arsenal – Institute for Film and Video Art, and Forum Expanded. In Tehran, she taught screenwriting at ÖKF and founded Interfilm Script Pitch Iran, creating new platforms for emerging voices. Her curatorial work has been presented by major institutions, including the Berliner Festspiele, the Akademie der Künste, and Sinema Transtopia.

Moshiry has been part of the selection team for the short and mid-length competitions at Kassel Dokfest and served as Director of Dokfest Campus. Between 2021 and 2025, she was a guest lecturer at the University of Kassel. She is currently a member of the Berlinale Forum selection committee and the Artistic Director of Interfilm Script Pitch. Since 2020, she has lived and worked in Berlin, where she co-founded Road River Films with Anne Winkler.

Afsun Moshiry participated in “Greatest” Short Films of All Time 2025, a first-ever poll of its kind as a collective love letter to the art of short-form moving image. yanco and Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, in collaboration with Talking Shorts, invited filmmakers, curators, distributors, critics, and scholars worldwide to nominate 10 audiovisual works under sixty minutes that they personally consider the “greatest” of all time. This was Afsun Moshiry’s submission:

I find the idea of a poll dedicated to short films outside the established canon genuinely compelling. It creates a space for works that often slip through the cracks—formally adventurous, quietly radical, or simply unclassifiable pieces that resist the usual hierarchies. Highlighting these films not only broadens our sense of what the short-film form can be, but also enriches the discourse around it. It’s an invitation to look beyond the familiar landmarks and acknowledge the vibrant, unconventional voices shaping the field.

— Afsun Moshiry
Movie Original Title Director Country Year Duration
Alaska Dore O. Germany 1968 18’
Aspirant Souleymane Cissé Mali 1969 14’
DokhtarBaas Didn’t Want to be Alone دختربس نمی‌خواست تنها باشد Naser Gholamrezai Iran 1974 31’
Sync Touch Barbara Hammer USA 1981 10’
Waterfall Corinne Cantrill, Arthur Cantrill Australia 1984 17’
Constrain Contraindre Antoine Fontaine, Galdric Fleury France 2020 11’
Les chenilles Michelle Keserwany, Noel Keserwany France 2022 30’
Never Come Back Assaf Gruber Germany 2023 17’
Grandmamauntsistercat Zuza Banasińska Poland, The Netherlands 2024 23’
UNDR Kamal Aljafari Palestine, Germany 2024 15’