Oogland Film Production & Cine Blend
Festival 2017

'Exile' is like standing naked before a rapidly alienating world.

With his stories about alienation and longing, Nasim Khaksar is constantly ripping open the wound called 'exile'.

Using photos, objects and passages from his books, on his journey Nasim contemplates on longing and the ‘wound’ of being uprooted.



Song of Exile tells the life story of a man accounting for his exile and his refugee existence. When the dust of thirty years of being a refugee has settled, when the memories of the lashings he suffered during his imprisonment have become a distant echo, what is left?

The exile's world is a strange world. The burden of your own history is pressing down on your fragile shoulders. One memory after another comes back to you. After a while you realize that this person sitting there is nothing but an empty shell. His soul is somewhere else.



Nasim Khaksar was born in 1944 in the South Iranian port city of Abadan. As a writer he was persecuted by both the Shah’s and Khomeini’s regimes. Together with Nasim we retrace his flight into exile, the journey he undertook some thirty years ago, all the way back to the border of his unreachable homeland.

Nasim Khaksar already was a celebrated writer when, in 1983, he was forced to leave Iran to avoid a death sentence. In spite of censorship his books were widely read and he became a symbol of resistance against the regime of Ayatollah Khomeini.

With his stories about alienation and longing, he is constantly ripping open the wound called ‘exile’.
In the film he takes the reversed path he took almost 35 years ago: through Turkey to the Iranian border. There for him his journey ends, for he is still not allowed to go back.



Using photos, objects and passages from his books, on his journey he contemplates on longing and the ‘wound’ of being uprooted.

John Albert Jansen (Netherlands)
Netherlands, Turkey | 2016 | 56 min
Persian, English spoken, English subtitled
Afbeelding Song of Exile

John Albert Jansen studied Dutch and Literature at the University of Amsterdam. He worked as a journalist and literary critic for several newspapers and magazines. Currently he is working as a documentary filmmaker and producer at Oogland Film Productions in Amsterdam.



Song of Exile

2016 – HDV – 55 min.
director: John Albert Jansen
scenario: John Albert Jansen, Marieke Rodenburg
camera: Adri Schrover (N.S.C.)
sound: Adri Schrover (N.S.C.)
editor: Daan Veldhuizen
sound editor: Matthijs Klijn, Frank van der Weij
production: Oogland Filmproducties
co‑producer(s): RTV Utrecht
executive producer: Marieke Rodenburg, Annelotte Verhaagen, Judith Zijlstra
financing: Mediafonds, Stichting Democratie, Media, VSB Fonds
co‑workers: Danniel Danniel, Barbara Kist, Nafiss Nia Judith Zijlstra
awards: Selectie Gouden Kalf