Dr. Mahsa Foroughi

Postgraduate Deputy Course Leader

Before joining MetFilm, Mahsa had already followed a path that wove through architecture, poetry, and cinema. She began her journey in the field of architecture, but she was always writing (quietly and consistently) poems and short stories that traced the emotional textures of everyday life in Iran. For over 22 years, writing remained her constant, gradually revealing something profound: a hidden thread between the logic of space and the lyricism of cinema.

This discovery became the foundation for her PhD, where she explored the intersections of film, poetry, and philosophy. Her academic work deepened, especially during her years teaching at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney. There, she developed and led cross-disciplinary courses that examined how architecture and cinema shape human experience, not just visually, but sensorially and emotionally.

Yet she always felt a pull back to story, not just theory, but narrative. She returned to university to complete a second Master’s degree in Scriptwriting, years after earning her PhD. During that time, she developed a script that was selected for development in Berlin. It was a turning point. She moved from Sydney to Berlin, following the creative momentum, and began developing her film projects more intensively.

In Berlin, her practice expanded to include video art, with works exhibited in prominent galleries and selected by the Goethe-Institut for a special exhibition in Weimar. Her artistic voice, grounded in poetry and shaped by philosophy, found new forms through the moving image.

Today, Mahsa continues to work as a scriptwriter, collaborating with filmmakers in both Germany and Australia. At MetFilm, she brings a rare combination of academic depth, interdisciplinarity, and artistic sensitivity to her teaching. Her approach is always exploratory, always crossing disciplines, always returning to the power of storytelling as a way of seeing the world differently.