Fumbleby Mahsa TalebianiScreening at THE BRATTLE, Sept. 17, 2026
Fumble is a series of lighthearted performative vignettes that explore the duality of immigrant and queer life, the longing to return to the familiar geographic, cultural, and bodily coordinates of the past, alongside an equally compelling desire to assimilate into a new culture and identity. It depicts both the attempts and failures to fit in and explores the felt incongruities of this experience in a hybrid form.
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Eggs are obviously important in the film, appearing throughout as something that cracks, falls, gets squished by your hand, floats in the bath, and is used in baking. What does the egg represent for you?
There’s a tension between the artificial and the real in Fumble: the cardboard kitchen, the egg-yolk hair, the fake eggs, the burnt laptop in the oven. How did you develop this constructed visual world, and what does its artificiality allow you to express?
The cheerleader seems to embody a very specific pressure to assimilate into American culture. How did you approach the idea of assimilation?
Your own body plays such an important role in the film, especially as it moves between spaces of vulnerability, transformation, and fragmentation. What does this physical presence mean to you?
What are you working on at the moment? And are there any new ideas or themes you’re interested in exploring in your next projects?
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Mahsa Talebiani is an experimental filmmaker exploring the intersections of queerness and diaspora experience. Their work delves into the sensory explorations within intercultural cinema, often showcasing their own body to manifest an embodied vulnerability. Through performance, video art, and sculptural space, they challenge traditional narrative film structures and hierarchical productions.
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