How Long Is “Chooka”?

In 1973, the Shah of Iran commissioned the construction of a paper factory in the lush northern province of Gilan. The arrival of heavy industry in a predominately agricultural region brought with it a series of interventions into this landscape, including the construction of modernist apartment blocks and purpose-built villas to house foreign engineers from Canada and the United States and their families. Their stay, however, came to a sudden halt in 1979 with the Iranian revolution forcing them to flee the site overnight. Chooka unfolds around the site of this factory, returning to the location 40 years after it mysteriously appeared in Jacques Madvo’s 1978 footage. Treating his archival material as a guide, the film moves through a landscape altered by industry, technology and revolution, bringing silent images from the past forward to a location caught within a perpetually uncertain present.