Unimaginable Dreams

Written and directed by Marzia Jamili, a Hazara refugee now living in Sweden, Unimaginable Dreams is an auto-ethnographic essay film that traces Marzia’s last days in Athens, Greece. Blending documentary and fiction, Marzia casts her best friends to recreate magically real versions of her dearest memories of Athens as she delivers a cutting address to Afghanistan, in which she tells the sea about her broken homeland. Unimaginable Dreams is the first production by the Melissa Network’s Film Club, a collaborative program co-founded by Dove Barbanel and Brittany Nugent, that challenges hegemonic representations of migrant women by empowering members to reclaim the gaze and create narratives of their own. A creative group of women from Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Kenya and Ethiopia share diverse perspectives to analyze their favorite movies, learn filmmaking skills and collaborate on original productions that add urgent personal nuance and depth to migration storytelling.

Marzia Jamili

Marzia Jamili is a 17-year-old Hazara refugee from Iran, currently residing in Sweden. An early member of the Melissa Network, Marzia was a vocal human rights activist in Athens, Greece. Having missed out on a formal education for most of her life, she plans to study politics at university and work in Parliament, advocating for change in Afghanistan.