2026
(aluminium dibond, digital print, LED panels, water)
Sacred Tears is a two-part video installation bridging ancient Egyptian mythology with modern urban life. By replacing the pupils of the Eyes of Ra and Horus with video portraits of Viennese citizens, the work merges individual identities with divine symbols. This captivating collective portrait connects past and present, inviting reflection on community, myth, and contemporary dualities.
2025
15-minute, 16:9, 6K
based on a performance in public space
GREEN is an interactive video following a performer in a large green cloth moving slowly through the city. Filmed from an extreme distance, the piece invites viewers to navigate the scene using a joystick—zooming in, observing passersby, and choosing where to look. By turning spectators into active storytellers, the installation questions how we perceive, judge, or ignore strangers in public spaces, and how much of their reality we simply invent in our minds.
2025
5-minute, 2-channel video,
5 digitally printed ceramic plates
Faces explores the hidden relationship between food, culture, and politics. Focusing on everyday practices and domestic spaces, it examines how our most intimate habits are shaped by history, power, identity, and ideology. The work reveals that even the act of eating is never separate from the political structures that surround us.
2023
75 Minute, fiction,
Directors: Reza Shirvan & Mahdi Ziachamani
16:9, 4K
A middle-aged man revisits his past in six chapters within a white space.
2024
4 Minute,
16.9, 4k
A journey back 24 years through 24 frames per second.
2023
15 Minute, Split screen
4:3, 4K
Golara, a young girl who fears becoming like her mother sees a family therapist with her mother. Over time, their roles shift, and Golara’s mother finds herself in front of the therapist this time accompanied by her own mother.
8 Minute, Split screen,
4:3, 4K
The seven year old Shirvan, found himself seventeen years later running down the street to his grandmother's house in an attempt to break his childhood record.
info@rezashirvan.com
Reza Shirvan (b. 1999, Mashhad, Iran) is an Iranian experimental filmmaker and visual artist based in Vienna. His practice centers on split-screen and interactive cinema, addressing the body, public space, authorship, and socially engaged practices. With a political approach, Shirvan challenges dominant narratives and interrogates power structures, positioning cinema as both an artistic medium and a tool of critique. His current research focuses on performance-based and expanded cinematic forms, particularly cinema in public space. Due to the absence of mandatory hijab, the presence of nudity, and thematic engagement with sexual disorders, some of his works are not permitted to be screened in Iran. He began his studies in Dramatic Literature in Iran but left the program unfinished while evading compulsory military service. He is currently studying Transmediale Art at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, under the supervision of Jakob Lena Knebl.
Selected Works
2026-Sacred Tears
(Videoinstallation)
2026- The long sunset
(Performence)
2025- Faces
(Installation)
2025- Green
(Installation)
2024-So Nostalgia Is the Suffering Caused by an Unappeased Yearning to Return
(Experimental Film)
2023- Mammals
(Short Film)
2023-Monkey
(feuture Film)
2018- In the Morning
(short Film)
Diploma Programme in Transmedia Art
University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria
2025-present
BA of Arts in Time-based and Interactive Media Arts
University of Arts Linz, Austria
2023-2025
BA in Dramatic Literature
Pars University of Architecture and Art, Tehran, Iran
2019-2022
Exhibitions, Screenings
& Lectures (Selected)
Sacred Tears,
BadeShiff, Vienna Festival Center,
15.05.2026 - 21.06.2026,
The Long Sunset,
Performance, Vienna Festival, Austria, 2026
Faces,
Video of the Month
Solo Screening, Das Weisse Haus Gallery, Vienna, 2026
Appropriating the Supermarket as Public Space
Group exhibition with Anna Paul,
Vienna, Austria, 2026
The History of Long-Term Performance Lecture
with Marina Abramović
Albertina Museum, Vienna, 2026
So Nostalgia Is the Suffering Caused by an Unappeased Yearning to Return
International Youth Media Festival YOUKI,
Wels, Austria 2026
Green
Interactive Documentary
Ars Electronica Festival,
Linz, Austria 2025
In the Morning (Short Film)
African Film Week,
Uyo, Nigeria, 2025
Lecture: Art Under Pressure:
Gender, Resistance and the Underground Cinema of Iran
African Film Week,
Uyo, Nigeria, 2025
Faces Video Installation
BestOFF – Sommerfrische, Group Exhibition,
Gmunden, Austria, 2026
Mammals (Short Film)
European Film College,
Ebeltoft, Denmark, 2025
Lectures:
Intersectionality in Cinema
Underground Cinema in Iran & Political Realities
European Film College,
Ebeltoft, Denmark, 2025
Mammals (Short Film)
Opening Film, ISFA Cinematheque,
Tehran, Iran, 2023
In the Morning (Short Film)
Nahal International Short Film Festival, Tehran
National Online Screening, Movie Zone, China
National Online Screening, Hashure, Iran
Screening, Filmmuseum Düsseldorf, Germany
Room (Short Film)
Tassvir Saal Festival, Tehran, Iran
Room – Ravan Film Festival, Mashhad, Iran
Award: Best Screenplay (Talent Campus)
Fajr International Film Festival, Tehran