Exploring Identity Through Film with Sierra Urich

In this episode, host Tara Jabbari interviews Sierra Urich, an interdisciplinary visual artist and filmmaker whose documentary, 'Joonam' explores themes of identity, displacement, and the immigrant experience. Sierra shares insights from her festival circuit journey, the significance of her family's story, and the challenges of filmmaking in an authoritarian context. The conversation highlights the universal nature of longing for home and the importance of cultural narratives in connecting diverse audiences. Sierra emphasizes the power of persistence in the independent film distribution process and the value of networking at film festivals.

Learn more at: www.joonamfilm.com

Transcript

VO  •  00:10
Welcome to Media Makers Spotlight from Women in Film and Video in Washington, D.C. We bring you conversations with industry professionals for behind the screens, insight and inspiration. 

Tara Jabari  •  00:21
Welcome everyone to Media Makers Spotlight. I'm your host for the episode, Tara Jabari, and today we have Sierra Yorick, an interdisciplinary visual artist based in Vermont. Her first film, a documentary called Junam, premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival and won Best Documentary at Cleveland International Film Festival, the Bentonville Film Festival, and the Sharjah Film Platform. Welcome to the show, Sierra. Thank you so much, Tara. It's great to be here. So your documentary logline, I'm just going to read it and then we'll get right into it. Spurred by a provocative family member and a lifetime of separation from the country her mother left behind, a young filmmaker delves into her mother and grandmother's complicated pasts and her own fractured Iranian identity. And I also wanted to make a note that in your Sundance, like Meet the Filmmaker video, you were saying that you hoped that this documentary, while it's about an Iranian family, it would be reflective of children of other immigrants' experiences who long to, for a home, quote, for a home they have never seen or able to have, end quote. So I was wondering, first, have you heard from people who are not of Iranian descent of other immigrants that have seen Junam and have expressed something? 

Sierra Urich  •  01:53
Absolutely. I think that's one of the biggest takeaways from my experience on the festival circuit is that, of course, the film speaks to Iranian Americans. But I had people from all immigrant backgrounds come up to me and say, you know, I'm Indonesian and, you know, I don't really have any, you know, Thai, C, Iranian culture. But this is exactly what it's like with me and my family or me and my mom. One of the most interesting examples of this was in Sharjah in the UAE. I had a screening there, which is where that word comes from. But a woman who I'm trying to remember, her mother was Sudanese and she grew up in Dubai. And she said, you know, this is really similar to what I grew up with, with my family, the same type of conversations and interactions. And here's a woman who has completely different culture than me, grew up in a completely different place than me, looks completely different than me. But she saw so much similarities in our stories. That's been one of the biggest treats for me, I think, in sharing the film with people is hearing all the ways that our human experiences connect with one another. 

Tara Jabari  •  03:08
I think it's very true. I was able to watch a film at the Venice Film Festival. It was by a Ukrainian filmmaker when Russia first invades Ukraine, and it's called Honeymoon. And it was honeymooners and they move into their first home. And then the next day, the attacks happen and they have to hide into their apartment. And I was telling her, you know, we had a couple of people who were from Ukraine and they were crying their eyes out. I felt very much like what was my family going through during the Iranian revolution? Many cultures, you don't have to be Ukrainian to understand it. You don't have to be Iranian to understand, especially in America where it's a melting pot. Yep. And many people come here and they're first or second generation American, but there's a great line in Crazy Rich Asians where they're like, you're not American enough in America and you're not Chinese enough. to be Chinese, you know, sort of thing. And so many of us could relate to that. So when I heard about your documentary through a mutual Laker cousin, Parisa, shout out to Parisa, who's a friend of mine. I was like, this is a very unique thing. And also just we'll get to it, but how your film has been able to be distributed, which I thought was kind of unique. But people respond well to the hardships of when you're taken away from your home, basically, or when you're you and me, because I was born in America. America is my home, but I also felt like there's this other whole other country that I've never been to that I know, but it's sort of othered. 

Sierra Urich  •  05:00
Yeah, there's so much wrapped up in, you know, identity and home and family separation. And I I think, you know, as the world becomes a more complicated place and there's more and more wars going on, you know, there's just so many unfortunate patterns where people can see themselves in these like stories of displacement. We shared the film in Poland. Our European screening was in Warsaw and they subtitled the film in Polish. And I got to experience, you know, people in Poland watching the film. And I thought, you know, is this really going to translate? Because there's so much of a, you know, meta narrative going on in terms of just like the language and how the language isn't quite translating. And so I thought, is it going to work when there's now a third language that you're reading the film and the subtitles? And I really wasn't sure. But like you're saying with your experiences with Ukrainians, I had a lot of people coming up to me after that film saying, oh, you know, I'm Ukrainian. or, and I just left and my family's still over there or, um, I live in Poland, but my mother lives in Belarus and I haven't been able to see her for a long time. And so it was really just like this experience of, um, you know, longing for home or family or an identity that's just out of reach 

Tara Jabari  •  06:18
is, you know, unfortunately really universal. Yeah. It's in a, you guys did a great job of, Of those little snippets of the different generations, you have these three generations, too. And I wanted to talk a little bit about some of the things that people might not realize. There's a part where your grandmother is explaining how the new regime was, it sounded like they were torturing people. And your mother, who's translating for you because your Persian was not as advanced, if you will. So your mother's like, I'm not I'm not doing this anymore, because if anything. You, you, Sierra, the filmmaker, the journalist, the media maker is media maker spotlight, media maker will get in trouble if the Ayatollah or, you know, if anyone wants to get revenge for bringing about light to this. And we had just did a film called War of Words, which was about a Russian-British journalist who was assassinated for bringing about light to injustices. And it is true that a lot of journalists and media makers are constantly put in danger, but they have to. It's our way of finding out the truth and things like that. Could you kind of share a little bit of that backstory for people who might not know what's going on in Iran or why your mother was very emotional about that and didn't want to talk about it? And then has there been any repercussions or have you met other journalists that came up to you and they're like, I reported about Sudan or Russia or anything like that? 

Sierra Urich  •  08:05
Yeah. So to shed a little bit of light on what my mom was talking about in that scene is multilayered. You know, on one hand, like you mentioned, there's real consequences for people who are speaking truth to power anywhere in the world where you're dealing with a regime who doesn't want, you know, certain information to come out or have more authoritarian leanings. You know, we're seeing that in the U.S. right now. People who speak up against the Trump administration, college students who protest against, you know, the primary narrative. You know, there's repercussions for saying something that someone in power doesn't want you to say. And so for, you know, for my family, they're Baha'i. And Baha'is have been historically persecuted for a very long time in Iran. And every time there's something that comes up in the country, it's the minorities that are often targeted. And Baha'is are a religious minority in Iran. And there's lots of history behind their persecution. So that's one of the things that my mother is worried about is my grandmother is telling this story of Baha'i persecution. And that's sort of like a trigger point for potentially being targeted by the regime. And another there's another layer to her, you know, her worries in that situation is now I'm also an Iranian American in America. And what sort of misconceptions or racist ideology is going to be put on top of me living in the U.S.? You know, there's so much Islamophobia in the U.S. a lot of people here who are are racist in that way you know they don't know anything they don't know anything about the nuance of you know baha'i or islam or you know iranian culture they just see a brown person from the middle east and you know all these things triggering in the mind you know and so my mom's like okay now you're also putting your you know now i'm worried about you putting yourself on the line here talking about you know these stories that conjure up these ideas of like i don't know this like monster and in someone's sort of like racist mind and so you know it's like she's dealing with these multiple you know demons for lack of ever word is you know how do you keep how do i keep my daughter safe if she ever goes to Iran. Or, you know, there's also a history of targeting of Iranians outside of Iran by the Islamic regime. And so she's dealing with that. And then she's also dealing with her own experiences as an immigrant in this country and wanting to protect me from the racism that I could feel here. And so for her, it's like the story is just this inflection point of all these things that could potentially go wrong that she wants to protect me from. And so I think, you know, for me, when I was filming that scene, when I was living it, it was this realization of like, okay, here is actually the shape of this wall and I'm seeing it in front of me and all these bricks of fear that have so many different origins. But, you know, this is sort of like the wall that keeps me separate in a lot of ways. from my Iranian identity because mixed up in this Iranian identity is all this family history of trauma that my family is trying to protect me from, that my mother is trying to protect me from. But protection also has a distancing effect sometimes. And so for me, it was this moment over the summer of realizing just sort of like the wall that I was dealing with, like what I was trying to move past myself to try and get a little bit more of a personal connection with my association with Iran, my association with my identity. 

Tara Jabari  •  12:02
Yeah, it's a tough balancing act. And I didn't even think about it, the other aspect of you being in anywhere else other than Iran and how others might treat you, even Americans or wherever. And it's a legitimate concern. Have you heard from others who might have come up to you and be like, oh, I feel the same as your mother, or I am also a journalist from my own country, or something like that. Has that come up? 

Sierra Urich  •  12:34
I've had a lot of people come up and say, you know, from my perspective, saying, oh, I'm the child of an immigrant, I see myself in your story. And I've also had people come up to me and say, oh, I really understand your mother. I feel like I'm in your mother's position. I haven't had as many people come up saying, oh, I'm a journalist who has been, you know, silenced or facing this sort of threats. And I think a large part of that is because it's such a personal story. And it's really a story about family as well and about mothers and daughters. And so usually that's what people see in the film. Amongst all these other larger geopolitical struggles that we're all working through, I think really what the film is is a family story. And so that's what people talk about. So I haven't faced any sort of actual pushback or felt in danger in many ways. Oh, that's good. 

Tara Jabari  •  13:27
Could you actually explain what the word junam means for those who might not know? 

Sierra Urich  •  13:31
Yeah, of course. Yeah. So junam is like a ubiquitous term in Persian or Farsi. I think it literally means my life, but it's translated into, you know, sort of like my soul, my lifeblood, that kind of thing. But it's used as a term of endearment. So my dear, my dearest. You would put it, you know, after someone's name, like Tara June, Tara Junem. So if you're in and around any Iranian families, you'll hear Junem, Janem constantly. 

Tara Jabari  •  14:04
Yeah. 

Sierra Urich  •  14:05
Aziz Am, they all mean the same thing. 

Tara Jabari  •  14:07
Yeah. 

Sierra Urich  •  14:07
My dear, my dearest. 

Tara Jabari  •  14:09
I sometimes say like sweetheart. 

Sierra Urich  •  14:12
Yep, sweetheart. 

Tara Jabari  •  14:12
You know, so that they kind of understand a little bit of the context of it. But yeah, it's true. So one of the things that it is kind of interesting, as I read about how your documentary sort of progressed, how did you get the, I knew him as an actor, and I might be saying his name wrong, Arian Moyad. How did you get him involved? At what time of the process? 

Sierra Urich  •  14:42
So he came on after the film was already completed. We were connected by our publicist to him, Falco Inc. Great publicist. Shout out to Falco. They had to work with him on a past project. And so they came on when we got into Sundance to help us just publicize the film, get the word out there, get in some publications. And they were the connector for us with Arian. So we sent him a cut. He watched the film and he just instantly fell in love with it and really felt like it was telling his story too. And so it was a really natural pairing. And Arian was an incredible partner in every shape, frame form with getting the film out there. He really helped connect us to the Iranian-American community in the U.S. and also helped us connect with just the broader film industry ecosystem. So I think we would be in a really different place distributionalized if Arian wasn't a part of the project. 

Tara Jabari  •  15:42
Yeah, I mean, when I was watching the documentary, I was with my friend at my friend's house and I was letting her know who was involved with it. And she's like, oh, the dude from Success. Yeah. So I feel like you had that kind of going for you, for those who might not know anything about Iran or anything, but if they knew him on screen from Popular Works, you have that like big name kind of thing. 

Sierra Urich  •  16:09
Yeah, exactly. 

Tara Jabari  •  16:10
And you're like, let's use it. And then I saw some interviews and things and he was always, not always, excuse me, but he would be a lot in the forefront and his Persian is very excellent. 

Sierra Urich  •  16:21
Yeah, he, I believe he came in grade school to the U.S. So he grew up there, partially was born there. I think a lot of his family is still there. 

Tara Jabari  •  16:31
Okay, cool. I didn't know that. But you also went to the Bentonville Film Festival, which is part of the Geena Davis Institute. And we did an interview with them. So I was wondering how that experience was. And just in general, it's been a while, but you have been continuing, it sounds like, to continue with the film festival circuit with Geena. What is the process and is there any like deadlines or things like, oh, it can't be older than five years old to still apply to certain film festivals and things like that? Can you share a little bit about that and a little bit about Bentonville? 

Sierra Urich  •  17:12
Yeah, of course. So we worked with a company called the Film Collaborative. And what they do is they apply to festivals for us. They negotiate screening fees for you as well. So you make hopefully a little bit of money with people screening your films. And then they take half of the screening fees that they negotiate. So it's great because applying to festivals is costly. Usually there's a lot of application fees and they cover a lot of that for you. And then you have someone negotiating on your behalf saying, you know, we typically charge to screen the film at a festival. And so you don't have to do any work because applying to festivals is a whole job in and of itself. And hopefully they're also helping you make a little bit of money while your film is on the festival circuit. So that's how we ended up at Bentonville. The Film Collaborative, they've been doing this for a really long time. So they have lists of thousands of festivals and experience with a lot of festivals to know which ones are a little bit more of a scam. Because there are a lot of scammy festivals out there. English ones are really reputable and good to go to as a filmmaker, good for networking. So Bentonville was really on their list of like, oh, this is a really great festival. We want to make sure you apply your film to it. And we got in. I had never been to Arkansas. I had never been to Bentonville. I didn't know anything about what to expect. I think for me, Bentonville was a lovely festival, but also it was a turning point on the festival circuit for me as a director. Because I, for the first time, approached the festival as a travel opportunity. Thinking, you know, I've never been to this place before. I actually don't know anything about this festival. I'm just going to go and see what Bentonville is like. And they were going to fly me out and put me up. And so I thought, great, you know, a lot of places don't do that. So I might as well go check it out. And I had the time of my life. And I think a lot of it is because I approached the festival from this attitude of I'm just going to go have fun. And Bentonville is a really cool town. And the festival, they put on like a lot of sort of like fun events. And so I just had a blast at the festival. And then we ended up winning the award for Best Feature Documentary. And it was like this total surprise. And so I think that, you know, for filmmakers, that's really my advice with festivals is do your best to try and get into your biggest reach top tier festival. You know, apply to Sundance, apply to Venice, apply to Berlin, you know, apply to all the ones that are on your radar of if I get in, it's like amazing and hope for the best. And then just have fun with it. You know, there's a lot of pressure, I think, on filmmakers to do the right thing or get into the right place in order to distribute your film. But the reality right now in the industry, especially for nonfiction film, but really all independent film across the board, is there is just not a lot of opportunities for distribution. The point is to get your film seen and to connect with the audience and to have fun. And you're probably not going to make any money and you're probably not going to get on Netflix. And all these things that, you know, you think might happen, you know, highly likely will not happen. And so that's sort of my takeaway from the experience with the festival circuit is to enjoy it and enjoy networking and meeting people. And at Bentonville, I met someone who works at the Getty in L.A. And that's turned into a really great job opportunity for me. I've been doing a lot of editing work for the Getty. And so you just you never know who you meet at these festivals and what it might turn into. I guess that's my long rambling spiel with festivals is that have a good time and meet people. But don't expect that your film is going to get bought and you're going to end up with this career out of thin air. 

Tara Jabari  •  21:12
Yeah. Just like enjoy the ride kind of thing. 

Sierra Urich  •  21:17
Enjoy the ride. And I think there's a lot of pressure on filmmakers to do the right thing, get into the right festival, do this like magical press tour. And that if you do all those right steps, you know, you'll get the golden ticket and you'll end up on Netflix and someone will call you to, you know, get your next film made or someone's going to want to make the next adaptation of your next film. And that just doesn't happen. And I think that's sort of like a lie that gets peddled a little bit to independent filmmakers. But it's, you know, it just doesn't happen that way. 

Tara Jabari  •  21:50
But I like your example of that you met somebody at the Getty Museum and that led to another series of projects that are not necessarily as a documentary filmmaker because you do other things or just enjoying the ride. And you're like, hey, if you're going to pay for my room, I might as well enjoy it. 

Sierra Urich  •  22:11
Yeah, you know, use it as a travel opportunity and use it as networking opportunities. So I might not have gotten the big check for Junem to have a worldwide deal on, you know, whatever platform. But I did meet someone who kept me like really employed for the last couple of years, just working with them to create video content commercially. And so you never know what is going to come out of the experiences of being at these festivals. 

Tara Jabari  •  22:43
Now, your film also was able to be distributed. I read that it was on American Airlines. Yep. And we've never actually spoken to anyone who's had their film done that, especially in indie. How did that come about? 

Sierra Urich  •  23:00
The way that you get your film on airlines is you work with these middleman companies called content service providers. And so there's a bunch of different ones out there. Nuvu is one of them. Sterner, I believe, is another one. And the one that we worked with to get on American Airlines is Stellar. And so it's these names that you probably never heard of, but they contract with filmmakers and then contract with airlines to just provide them with content. And so through one of the filmmaker labs that I did while I was making the film, Firelight Media, which is a lab for nonfiction filmmakers of color. one of the program mentors through Firelight reached out to me and said hey you know we've I have a contact that's stellar she's really looking to program some interesting non-fiction films I think it would be a great fit can I connect you guys and so a contact that I had from when I was you know producing this film and making it and in the trenches filling with my family was a contact that eventually connected me with someone at stellar and so I sent stellar the cut they watched it and they said great we think this would be good for american airlines one of the people that we contract with and so they were we were able to do a six-month deal where the film was on american airlines for six months and just and it just wrapped up um last 

Tara Jabari  •  24:28
month so it's no longer playing but i know i was just on an american airline yeah um like this past weekend and i wanted to check you know like it's not there oh yeah but you know you could reach back 

Sierra Urich  •  24:39
out and try and contract with them with another airline or, you know, re-up on the same airline. So yeah, it's a, it's a really great way to make a little bit money, a little bit of money as a independent filmmaker and to get your stuff seen because people watch movies on airplanes a lot. Yeah. So it's, it's ends up being like a really great way to get your film out there. 

Tara Jabari  •  25:00
That's great. Thank you for that. Right now it's available at the Criterion Collection and a So how does that sort of work with streaming services? 

Sierra Urich  •  25:15
So, you know, when we got into Sundance, we started working with a sales agent. And there's a lot of different sales agents out there. And their job was to sort of liaison between the filmmaker and people who might want to buy your film. Unfortunately, because the film industry with independent films is in such turmoil right now, especially when our film came out in 2023 you know things were really in free fall with the industry streamers weren't buying anything and the way that things work with film agents and streamers is that the film agents will usually take a cut off the top of 10 percent around that when they make a sale and so if sales aren't able to be made you sort of like you it lowers the incentive of film agents to you know work really hard to get your film out there because why would they care if you're just making a small amount of money it's not really worth their time to put in all their effort they're going to try and focus their efforts on a film that they can make a bigger sale on um so you know long story short there's a bunch of people that were supposed to help sell this film and it didn't sell and all those people disappear after about six months you know they kind of go away and stop trying you can't blame them they're trying to make money and so really what I did is I just started cold emailing a bunch of people um and so I reached out to filmmakers that I knew who knew someone at Criterion you know any place that I could find an email address and I just sent a ton of cold emails of you know here's the film at Play.Sundance that won these awards we you know were nominated for an Independent Spirit Award just give sort of like the brief flashy resume of the film just tried to get people to watch watch it. And Criterion was one of the people that said, we love the film. We'd love to put it on the channel for a year. And DocuNight is an Iranian specific film streamer. And they reached out to us saying, we'd love to add it to our catalog. And then we also heard back from a place called Grasshopper Films. And they work with a lot of independent films, both fiction and nonfiction. So they're helping us distribute the film educationally, non-theatrically in any spaces that aren't a commercial theater. And then they'll also help us get on like TVOD platforms like Amazon Prime Rental, Apple TV Plus Rental, things like that. So eventually the film will be available to rent in that way as well. That's so cool. So I think all the people that I know who have made independent work in the last couple of years have gotten their deals, vast majority of them themselves, just by sending emails out there into the wind. 

Tara Jabari  •  28:01
So sometimes those cold calls, cold emails actually work. 

Sierra Urich  •  28:05
Yeah, it's the only thing that worked. You know, I think we worked with film agents. You know, Arian did a lot of work to try and get the film distributed as well. And at the end of the day, the thing that was the most successful was just me sending a bunch of cold emails. 

Tara Jabari  •  28:21
Well, thank you so much. Is there anything that we haven't touched on that you'd like to share? 

Sierra Urich  •  28:26
You know, I think my biggest takeaway distribution wise is that the filmmaker has a lot more power than they think they have. And I had this conception that there's a right way to do something or there's a right person to do something or all these other people have more knowledge than I do. But in reality, what matters the most is who cares the most. And you as the filmmaker care the most about your film. No one will even come close to caring as much as you do. And so you have the most power just by the virtue of your persistence and how much you care about your project. And even if you've never done something before, it doesn't mean that someone's not going to take a chance on you or your project if they like what you've made. So that's my biggest takeaway of, you know, I think of the distribution process is that I wish I just started sending those cold emails like a year earlier. 

Tara Jabari  •  29:22
Yeah. 

Sierra Urich  •  29:23
You have the power in your own hands. You just have to take it. 

Tara Jabari  •  29:27
Thank you. We'll put things in the show notes. You have your website. What's the website? 

Sierra Urich  •  29:34
Junemfilm.com. And that has everywhere that the film is showing. We're also on Instagram at Junemfilm. And you can watch us on Criterion and DocuNight and coming to other platforms later in the year as well. 

Tara Jabari  •  29:46
Thank you so much, Sierra. Yeah, thanks, Tara. 

VO  •  29:50
Thanks for listening to Media Maker Spotlight from Women in Film and Video. To learn more about WIF, visit W-I-F-F-R-A-N-C-V-A-N-V-A-N-V-A-N-V-A-N- Reinhardt and edited by Michelle Kim with audio production and mix by Steve Lack Audio and Ed Saltzman. Subscribe to continue learning from more amazing media makers. Please visit mediamakerspotlight.com for more information. That's a wrap!