Ayan Cilmi

Ayan currently works in the visual arts but has a particular interest in film and is on the board of Encounters Film Festival.

Last year, she wrote, produced and directed her first self-funded short film. The film, “The Tongue I never Quite Knew”, explores the anxieties of a shift in culture, religion and language that occurs when families are settled after migration.

Ayan’s work strives to translate the feeling of isolation that is embedded in a dual culture that is invisible to those outside of it. A culture that is situated between that of the nation and that which is routinely othered.