A Terrible Beauty

Iram Ghufran

synopsis

Year

2023

university

University of Westminster

A Terrible Beauty is a speculative tale of two time-travelling companions, Lucy and Blue, as they wander through “Miracle City”—an intriguing world of eternal goods, forever flowers and perpetual persons.

Set in the vast wholesale markets of Yiwu, China, the film blurs the boundaries between documentary and science fiction to imagine a post-human present and future. Blending observational footage with speculative narrative, Iram Ghufran explores what it means to be human in a multispecies world shaped by advanced technology and artificial life. From mannequins and dolls to androids, the landscape of the film is populated by “companion copies” who reflect both our desires and our obsolescence. The film probes themes of ethics, mortality, and affect. How we relate to the things we create and what they reveal about us offers a meditation on technology, identity, and the shifting terrain of human experience through a quietly unsettling cinematic language.

The film emerged from a practice based doctoral project at CREAM, University of Westminster.

Iram Ghufran is an independent filmmaker and artist based in New Delhi. Her practice spans moving image, sound and text where she deploys speculative modes in narrative creation in order to critically engage with the nature of truth and the construction of reality. Iram holds an MA in Mass Communication from the AJK Mass Communication Research Centre at Jamia Millia Islamia University (2003), and a PhD from the Centre for Research and Education in the Arts (CREAM), University of Westminster (2023).

Iram's work has been supported by Arts Network Asia, Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council, Public Service Broadcasting Trust, Sandarbh and West Heavens. Her films have been screened at renowned art and cinematic platforms including Brakhage Centre, Cinema Akil, Experimenta India, Forum Expanded at Berlin Film Festival, International Film Festival of India, Seoul International Women's Film Festival (SIWFF), and Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition among others. Iram teaches at the Department of Art, Media and Performance, Shiv Nadar Institution of Eminence, Delhi NCR