1001 Frames, the feature directorial debut of Brooklyn-based and Iranian-American filmmaker Mehrnoush Alia, will make its hometown New York premiere at the Brooklyn Film Festival.
The independent film made its World Premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival’s Panorama in 2025, and went on to screen at other festivals, including the 2025 Thessaloniki International Film Festival, where it won the Film Forward Golden Alexander Best Feature Film Award and Fischer Audience Award.
It will screen at the Brooklyn Film Festival on Sunday, May 31 at 4:00 p.m. EST at the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with Alia and producer/actor Mohammad Aghebati in person for a Q&A after the screening.
Set within the confines of a black box studio, 1001 Frames follows a celebrated filmmaker (played by Aghebati) casting young women (performed by a stellar ensemble cast) for the role of Scheherazade in a horror adaptation of 1001 Nights. What begins as a conventional audition gradually destabilizes as the director’s methods become increasingly invasive. As the process intensifies, the presence of the director’s ex-wife, a collaborator, and a mysterious outsider reframes the audition as a tightly controlled environment shaped by power, authorship, and surveillance. The camera itself becomes implicated, shifting from passive observer to active instrument of control, while the women’s resistance exposes the structural imbalances at play.
Drawing on real testimonies, the film gives a glimpse into these women’s lives, stories of honor killing, abuse, and worse. 1001 Frames merges scripted narrative with documentary texture, positioning itself at the intersection of formal experimentation and urgent social critique. The film engages directly with ongoing industry conversations around accountability and representation in the wake of #MeToo, while resonating with global movements such as “Women, Life, Freedom.” Rooted in Iran yet spanning cultural contexts from the Middle East to the United States, the film reframes the myth of Scheherazade not as a singular voice, but as a collective act of resistance, where storytelling becomes a means of survival, agency, and defiance.
“1001 Frames came from years of listening to real stories and trying to find a way to tell them with honesty, “ said Alia. “It’s partly inspired by a friend, an ambitious actress whose path was derailed by abuse during training and in the industry. I set it in an audition room because that space can feel like both a beginning and a trap, shaped by power, silence, and expectation. Growing up in Iran, those limits on women stayed with me, even as the stories echo far beyond one place. I’m really excited to share the film with a New York audience at Brooklyn Film Festival, especially since I live in Brooklyn, to hear their reactions, and keep building a dialogue around this crucial issue.”
Content Advisory: 1001 Frames contains themes of sexual abuse, coercion, and psychological distress related to power dynamics in an audition setting; viewer discretion advised.
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