A young woman is trapped in emotional limbo after years of social suppression in Iran. She is suspended in stillness as life echoes faintly around her. Distant explosions punctuate her isolation, and every attempt to move forward is disrupted by external forces. As she gradually dissolves into nature, the film meditates on the fragility of human existence. Though the seasons shift from winter to spring, she remains frozen in silence and solitude.
Director Statement : INHALE was choreographed in the aftermath of Iran’s 2022 Women, Life, Freedom movement—in the stillness that followed the storm.
In the wake of suppressed revolutionary movements, the weight of societal pressure and emotional trauma often pushes people into numbness.
But numbness is not just physical—it’s a psychological and philosophical state that unsettles our sense of meaning and existence.
As collaborative filmmakers, we wanted to capture this quiet collapse: the feeling of being pulled away from life by a force beyond control, into isolation.
There are no words in our film, because words fall short. They cannot hold what remains after protest, grief, and silence. “Inhale” tries to be a visual exploration of isolation, loss, and the human condition, expressed through the language of contemporary dance and the power of the human form in space.
We chose a third-person camera—distant yet present—to reflect the quiet tension of being constantly observed.
Bio :
Mohsen Pouryousefian was born on March 21, 1988, in Tehran, Iran. He is a 37-year-old filmmaker, editor, photographer, and cinematographer. He is a graduate of the University of Applied Science and Technology (UAST), with a degree in film editing.
Mohsen started his career in filmmaking with the Alternative Cinema Workshop directed by renowned Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Shirvani. This early training influenced Mohsen’s artistic direction and helped him cultivate a distinctive, personal touch so characteristic of solo filmmaking.
He wrote and directed his first short film, *Premature* (Naa’ras / نارَس), in 2021, which was selected for various film festivals, including Tehran International Short Film Festival—an Oscar-qualifying event.
Aside from helming, Mohsen has worked intensively as a cinematographer and an editor on various short films, including his own productions in the alternative format.
His latest is “INHALE”, a performance-based experimental film he co-directed with Lagha Ghavam, furthering his investigation of non-traditional storytelling and experimental filmmaking.
Lagha Ghavam is an interdisciplinary Iranian artist based in Tehran, working across acting, performance, choreography, and experimental filmmaking. With a BA in Theatre Directing and current studies in Choreography and Performance at JLU University in Germany, her practice is rooted in movement exploration and visual storytelling.
Her acclaimed film “Crawling” and other award-winning projects reflect a deep engagement with the body as a medium of expression. She has also collaborated with Sahar Jaberian to choreograph the dance video for the fashion collection “FYAB”, merging contemporary dance with fashion in compelling ways.
Lagha is the founder of “Reclaim The Movement”, an underground dance workshop in Tehran where she mentors emerging artists and fosters experimentation with contemporary techniques. Her work has been recognized with international scholarships, including to “DanceWeb” at ImPulsTanz festival (Vienna) and the Centre National de la Danse (Paris).
Pebbles Underground is focused on showcasing and promoting experimental, avant-garde, underground, and no-to-low budget projects by artist-humans from all over the world. Absurd, uncanny, witty, humorous, slow-video – all are welcomed, and loved.
Pebbles Underground is an independent project not funded by any government or corporation, and we intend to keep it that way. Main source of funding is personal donations from humans organizing the project, who are artists themselves, and the main drive of the project is formed by the energy and involvement of the organizers, and the public.
