In the organizer's words:

Available here: KOMBITICKET SAMSTAG IM GRÜNEN SALON: € 13 / reduced € 10 / valid for both events in the Grüner Salon on Saturday, December 13: Women Who Said No (film) at 14:30 and Gegen Gewalt (panel) at 16:00

Part of the program of:
3 DAYS TO LIBERATION II
(statement and program)
December 12-14, 2025
Conceived & curated by Maryam Palizban
Presented by CONSTANZA MACRAS / DORKY PARK

Parastou Forouhar in conversation with Sepehr Atefi & Maryam Palizban

At a time when violence continues to assert itself as a language of power, speaking about justice itself becomes an act of resistance. This panel asks how memory, lamentation and witnessing can shape a justice that is not paired with violence.

In the context of 3 Days to Liberation II, this conversation is more than a discussion. It is part of an ongoing search for an ethics of liberation that inscribes the experience of the individual into the collective body of history. How can we talk about violence without repeating it? How can pain be made visible without instrumentalizing it?

Text: Maryam Palizban

The panel Against Violence: Complaint, Witness, Justice is dedicated to the question of how non-violent justice is possible, even in the face of systematic oppression, political persecution and structural violence. It explores how memory, testimony and individual experiences of political violence can be integrated into collective narratives.

The focus is on Parastou Forouhar, who was herself the target of political violence and has been fighting tirelessly for justice for decades. In conversation with Sepehr Atefi, she reflects on how victims of political persecution can make the stories of violence visible, define justice and remain non-violent in the process. Maryam Palizban moderates the panel and opens up a space in which personal testimony meets collective memory and the importance of justice in the face of global conflicts is discussed.

Parastou Forouhar was born in Tehran, Iran, in 1962. She has lived and worked in Germany since 1991. She studied art at the University of Tehran and continued her studies in Germany after leaving the country. Her parents, the opposition politicians Dariush and Parvaneh Forouhar, were murdered in Tehran in 1998 - an event that has shaped her artistic and political stance to this day.

In her work, Forouhar combines the personal with the political, the visible with the repressed. She uses drawing, photography, installation and digital media to explore the subtle fault lines between freedom and conformity, faith and power, body and system.

She often transforms familiar forms of Persian pictorial traditions into mirrors that point to the present. Images of torture, coercion and silence emerge from floral patterns and miniatures - not as a shock, but as a persistent reminder of how easily violence can be transformed into order.

In her long-standing practice, Forouhar combines artistic, political and memory-cultural commitment. She travels back to Iran every year - despite restrictions and security risks - to keep the memory of her parents alive and to demand a legal investigation into their murder. 3 Days to Liberation II brings an indispensable perspective to Parastou Forouhar: Her life and work represent how art and memory can become means of liberation in the face of systemic violence.

Sepehr Atefi is a documentary filmmaker and journalist. Born in Iran in 1989, he lives in Germany. After being excluded from higher education in Iran due to his affiliation with the Bahá'í community, he left the country and came to Germany as a political refugee in 2010 after a stay in Turkey. He completed a Master's degree in Media Arts at the Bauhaus University Weimar.

His films combine personal and historical perspectives on themes such as memory, faith and social justice. His works include Among Us (2021) - about Afghans and Afghan-Iranians in Iran - and Eternal Flame (2023) - about the life and murder of democracy activist Parvaneh Forouhar, which was screened at the first part of 3 Days to Liberation in the presence of Parvaneh's daughter, Parastou Forouhar.

Maryam Palizban is a theater scholar, artist, curator and actress. Born in Iran in 1981, she lives and works in Berlin. She received her doctorate in 2014 from the Freie Universität Berlin and the Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL) with the dissertation Performativity of Murder (Kadmos Verlag, 2017). Known as an actress from Deep Breath (Cannes 2003), Fat Shaker (Rotterdam 2013, Tiger Award) and Lantouri (Berlinale 2016, Iranian Film Academy Award). Her involvement during the Jina Revolution forced her to realize her projects from abroad and has shaped her artistic and curatorial work ever since. Palizban conceived and curated 3 Days to Liberation and develops formats in which artistic practice, memory and knowledge can be experienced directly.

Panel in German language

Part of the program of:
3 DAYS TO LIBERATION II
(statement and program)
December 12-14, 2025
Conceived & curated by Maryam Palizban
Presented by CONSTANZA MACRAS / DORKY PARK

Parastou Forouhar in conversation with Sepehr Atefi & Maryam Palizban

Price information:

Available here: KOMBITICKET SAMSTAG IM GRÜNEN SALON: € 13 / reduced € 10 / valid for both events in the Grüner Salon on Saturday, December 13: Women Who Said No (film) at 14:30 and Gegen Gewalt (panel) at 16:00