The idea for City of Poets grew from a mulberry tree that once lived in Sara Rajaei’s grandmother’s garden. When the tree died, a complex process of remembering was sparked for the artist and filmmaker, recalling how her grandmother’s house had become the first shelter for her family after becoming refugees of war. Through a collage of personal archival footage and photographs, these fragmentary memories form a story told in voiceover by Rajaei.

In City of Poets, a history emerges of a semi-utopian, metaphorical city, where all the streets are named after poets. When war begins, new neighbourhoods are built to accommodate the refugees. Abrupt and sweeping upheavals lead to confusion among the city's residents. Soon they find themselves lost amid the memories of the forgotten poets.

The film is at once personal and invites the viewer to project their own story and experience. By keeping the place unnamed, “the changes and confusion can trigger personal stories and memories in the viewer” says the director. This is storytelling in the tradition of oral history: not fixed, pieced together from different sources and voices, without specific hierarchy, repeated and changed ever so slightly.

City of Poets is one of three films screened as part of Sara Rajaei: In Focus and will be followed by a conversation with the filmmaker.

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