The Muscles Are Tense

Mahshid Mahboubifar

DIRECTOR

Mahshid Mahboubifar

YEAR

2026

COUNTRY

Germany | Iran

RUNTIME

16

 minutes

LANGUAGE

English | German

PRODUCER

Mahshid Mahboubifar

CAST

Mahshid Mahboubifar

Composed primarily of cut, pasted, and otherwise rearranged footage from a 2024 pro-Palestine protest in Berlin, Mahboubifar reflects on state brutality, the history of police, and Germany’s cooperation with Israel. Here, the camera is at once a tool for resistance as well as for intimidation, alienation, and persecution.

US Premiere

Director Profile

Mahshid Mahboubifar is an artist and filmmaker based in Berlin. Working across still and moving images, her practice draws on research and archival reconstruction to explore how narratives take shape and persist across time, memory, and fragmentary documentation.