Join us for a screening of the film, The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life, and a discussion with the film’s Co-Director and Executive Producer, Persis Karim, who will be in conversation with UCSC PhD candidate, Shirin Towfiq. The film shares a multi-generational perspective of those who came to the U.S. as students, refugees, and exiles in the context of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The film charts the longer history of Iranian Americans in the San Francisco Bay area and the ways they have been impacted by and contributed to the region. The event is presented by the Center for Middle East and North Africa and the Department of Film and Digital Media.

Persis Karim is the director of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University where she also teaches in the Department of Humanities and Comparative and World Literature. She is the editor of three anthologies of Iranian diasporic literature, and she has published numerous articles about Iranian diasporic literature and culture for academic journals as well as poetry and essays in non-academic publications. The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life is her first film and reflects her interest in documenting and sharing the larger history and personal stories of those who are part of the global Iranian diaspora. She co-directed and co-produced the film with Soumyaa Behrens. Karim received her Master’s degree in Middle East Studies and her PhD in Comparative Literature from UT Austin. She is also a poet.