City of Poets* (produced by Manon Bovenkerk for near/by film) had its world premiere in the last year's Berlinale Shorts Competition, followed by international festival selections including Hong Kong International Film Festival, Vienna Shorts, Concorto, DOXA Documentary Film Festival, FIPADOC, FEST New Directors New Films (Winner Silver Lynx) and Documenta Madrid, where it won the Fugas Award. The film was also awarded the Golden Calf for Best Short Documentary at the 2024 Netherlands Film Festival, and was honoured as Best Iranian Short Film by FiDAN.

Through a collage of personal archive footage and photographs, City of Poets unfolds the story of a semi-utopian city where every street is named after a poet. As war erupts, new neighbourhoods are built to house refugees, and sweeping social changes leave the city’s residents lost in memories of forgotten poets.

Reflecting on the inspiration for the film, Rajaei shares:

“The idea for City of Poets started with a Mulberry tree planted by my grandmother. It represented domesticity, belonging, and wisdom — and once it was gone, it felt as if she had died again. From there, memories of her house and the city where every street was named after poets began to take shape. Each frame in the film is like a link in a daisy chain of memories, mapping the history of that city from within.”

From short film success to feature debut
Alongside her award-winning short film, Rajaei is currently developing her first feature film, Headless Trees — a co-production between near/by film, seriousFilm and French–Iranian producers Alambic Productions, supported by the Netherlands Film Fund (De Verbeelding) and the international fund New Dawn.

In Headless Trees, a daughter named Roya narrates her late mother Raana’s history like a set of nesting dolls, with each memory revealing another. As the story moves backwards in time, the film interweaves intimate family memories with key moments from Iran’s contemporary history.

About the filmmaker
Sara Rajaei is an Iranian-Dutch filmmaker and video artist based in The Hague. Her work explores the fluid nature of memory and time through narrative, imagery, and oral history. After graduating from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, she completed a two-year residency at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten Amsterdam. In 2009, she was awarded the Prix de Rome Basic Award.

Read the SEE NL interview with Sara Rajaei here.

The European Film Awards are organized annually by the European Film Academy and honor the best of European cinema. The ceremony will take place on 17 January 2026 in Berlin.

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*Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund