An interview with Persis Karim about "The Dawn is Too Far: Stories of Iranian-American Life," a documentary film that shares the stories of Iranian Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area.

JJ: You've been at the forefront of documenting the stories and expressions of Iranians in the US for a long time. Many of us know you as the editor of the first collection of Iranian-American literature, A World Between: Poems, Short Stories and Essays by Iranian Americans, which was published 25 years ago. What motivated you to turn to film, and why this particular focus on the San Francisco Bay Area?

PK: Because I'm from the Bay Area, and because some of my own introductions to learning about Iran, Iranian history, and feeling a sense of connection to my father's homeland and culture, came through this specific Iranian diaspora community, I wanted to share their stories, and the longer history that has shaped them. It's a history of leaving, arriving, loss, separation, but also of reinvention and re-building. I wanted to show that the 1979 revolution, while important and central to Iranians in the US, it is not the only story. This community is one of many communities of Iranians in North America. They are shaped by so much more than a singular historical date.

JJ: Film gives us a different way to "read" people's stories and lives. Tell me more how you went from literature to film.

PK: I had a unique opportunity when I became the director of the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State University to help define a field of study that had for a long time been on the margins of many disciplines, and including within Iranian Studies. But I felt that people who are studying Iran were ignoring the obvious—that the history of those who have left Iran, who are immigrants and diaspora subjects, are also part of Iranian history and also American history. I wanted to capture that way that people, in their own voices, facial expressions, everyday activities can tell us about ​the processes of immigration, of the pain of exile, and also resilience necessary to move forward, to deal with the losses inherent in a national history such as that of modern Iran. And I also wanted to foreground their creativity—the ways that they have helped others see and feel that history both inside Iranian communities  and in the places where they live now.

JJ: You begin the film with the story of Parviz Shokat, one of the oldest living members of the Iranian diaspora community (that I know of) in the Bay Area. He began his life as a lone teenager whose parents sent him to go to high school and then university. What does his story offer in the way of understanding Iranian history and what many saw then as the "promise" of America?

PK: Parviz's story helps ground the story of Iranians in the mid-20th century. Like so many, he was encouraged to come to the US (or England) to study, so that he could return to help build Iran's modern infrastructure. And like many others of his generation, Parviz lived in the aftermath of big events in Iran that shaped his perspective: the World War II occupation of Iran, the 1953 military coup that overthrew Mossadegh, and the younger Shah's efforts to modernize the country with great influence by the United States. At one point in the film, Parviz equates these events with a kind of "colonial" project. So, when he came to the US and saw the Civil Rights movement, the questioning of systems of racism, economic exploitation, it was natural that he'd begin to look at his own country through a lens that was informed by what was taking place here in the US. In Parviz's story, and I hope that in the stories of the other people featured in the film, one can see that immigration, whether by choice or by circumstances of exile, one is transformed—but one also transforms the places one is from and, eventually, the place where one lives.

JJ: Your film employs the idea of the "archive" --how we can tell the story through archival material—whether personal or national—but you also share some rare footage that many are likely not to be aware of. Can you say more about the use of archival materials and how they helped tell the story , and what those archival sources are? ​

PK: I and my co-director (and the editor) made some strategic decisions not to make a typical documentary—i.e, not with a voiceover that tells the events in a strictly chronological order. We wanted to let the people in the movie tell the story not only in their own voices, but also with the idea that they are living archives themselves; they possess not only stories of movement to the US, but also histories inside the US. Those things need to be documented, and they had some wonderful photographs and documents that I thought needed to be foregrounded. Also, the San Francisco-based visual artist, Taraneh Hemami, who has done so much to help build a kind of community archive through art, provides  a really useful timeline, titled, "Bulletin" that grounds the events through which people narrate some of their own stories. This timeline identifies key moments of dissent both in Iran as well as in the US. For me that idea of dissent, movement, resilience, and reinvention are essential themes of this film.

JJ: There is some really rare footage from a film made in 1961 called "Norouz" which also gives a sense of the Bay Area's importance for Iranians over a sixty years, how did you acquire that and why is it significant to your work in documenting the Iranian diaspora?

PK: That's one of the most interesting events that helped shape the film over the past four plus years. In 2020, after Trump ordered the assasination of General Suleimani, I was interviewed by CNN about the reaction among Iranian Americans to some of the rhetoric that the then-president was spewing about what he would do potentially do to Iran and its Iranian monuments. A man named Peter Stine, who grew up next to the Iranian consulate in the 1950s and 1960s, shared a short film with me that his mother, Marie Louise Stine, had made about Norouz in the Bay Area. The film was commissioned in 1960 by the consul general Majid Rahnema. It was a fascinating document, and he donated it to the Center and I had it restored. The film was all the more moving because Peter shared with me his memories of growing up next to this Iranian family, their warmth and hospitality, and the ways that even as a kid, he learned about Iran through his interactions with this family. He lost track of the three kids he had been quite close to after they moved away in the mid-1960s, but he had very fond memories. I decided to track them down and through some sleuthing, I found them online, and after I had the film restored, we screened it online and had a reunion of two of the Rahnema family members and Peter. It was a poignant event, as they'd not seen each other in more than sixty years. Last year, when Pouneh, the sister in the family, was in the Bay Area, I arranged a meeting for Peter and Pouneh, and it was such a wonderful experience to watch them talking about their memories of that time. Peter told me that every time he heard Iran in the news, and most of it hasn't been very positive, he knew there was much more to the story. Iran was less abstract for him because of these human connections in his childhood. I wanted the film to suggest that Iranians who were living here even sixty years ago, had an impact. These are interwoven histories. I wanted to show the idea of exchange, of transformation, and the idea that histories are not abstractions, they are concrete and lived. They're made of people, their unfolding lives, their stories, their cultures, and their memories.

JJ: Wow, very interesting, and I think important for us to see these kinds of stories especially as Iran becomes prominent in the news cycle again and, of course, with that comes the obscuring of the stories of Iranians who live everyday lives—both in Iran and in the diaspora. So, how are you sharing this film, and will people be able to watch it online in the near future?

PK: I just finished the editing of the film in August, it took a long time to complete due to funding issues, Covid-19, and some overall challenges of me being a first-time filmmaker. For the moment, we're trying to share the film in as many venues as we can; locally, of course, but also at universities and in community settings. My goal is also to submit it to film festivals so it can be seen widely. The film evokes a lot of emotion, I think, and thus, it is an important tool for conversation and engagement. Unfortunately, the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies will be closing permanently in June 2025, due to the university and the donor's decision to divert the resources to student scholarships and to end support for the Center after eight years. I'm sad about this, truly. This film represents some of the work that undergirds the Center's mission. However, I do hope by the spring, we'll have an online screening and discussion, and who knows? maybe we'll have a distributor soon.

JJ: I want to thank you for this film, for showcasing some of the fascinating characters in the Bay Area whom I have spent time with, and like you, whom I admire very much. They have built a rich and colorful community, and I know too that they supported the work I've done over these many decades to create a space, a media platform, and even a global Iranian diaspora community for so many of us, and for multiple generations. I also want to thank you for your persistence and sensitivity in trying to tell the stories of the Iranian diaspora in literary as well as other forms. You too have helped to build that community.

PK: Thank you, Jahanshah. What people don't know is that you also contributed to that first anthology with a story called, "Persia, Iowa." So here we are, coming full circle in the storytelling cycle!

To support this film, arrange a screening, or connect with Persis Karim about her work, please feel free to email her at: persiskarim@sfsu.edu. And she asks that you follow the film's progress @thedawnistoofarfilm on Instagram and Facebook.