Tara Jasminaz – Let your art live through you

The magic in seeing your visions materialize in front of you is like no other feeling. I was lucky enough to have a Grandma that told me no matter what happens in life, trust in the dreams you have for yourself and they will all come true. She was right of course but it’s not as easy as it sounds.

After receiving a UK university degree in Film, I started on the ground working as a production assistant for Maruti Blue, an independent production company in Rio de Janeiro. My footage exploded with bright colors, tensions, and empowering stories. On returning to London I found some calm on the 14th floor creating video content for The Economist. I spent my time editing with strategy and style in a way I hadn’t considered before. This is when I realized how wide the media landscape is becoming and my ideas started to evolve and grow. I needed to pull my perspective out of “the making” and understand the bigger picture of it all, so I decided to study some more.
I received a diploma at the National Film and Television School in producing for multiple platforms and this opened up a whole new world for me as to what is possible when you mix creative fire with some practical managerial approaches. So that was it! I took up an assistant producer role at Sky cinema & virtual reality studios for a while which inspired me to aim even bigger on the media scale and then I took the plunge. I directed and produced my first independent feature documentary, Archangel Ali, and I funded it all myself. This experience gave me no choice but to surrender entirely to the creative process, I had to remove anything that was not a part of it, a cleansing experience for sure.

What a journey, but it’s only just begun because as a result of this way of life – allowing my art to quite literally live and breathe through my every move – I’ve now decided to open a production company named Pairidaeza Pictures in honor of my English-Persian heritage. Pairidaeza is an ancient Persian word for Paradise Garden, sometimes referred to as the Garden of Eden. So, now I’m summoning the magic all over again to build my vision for Pairidaeza from the ground up. This is what brings me to Los Angeles, the center of the world’s film industry, where I am expanding my network ready for the next steps. The key to my Grandma’s lesson is to never stop believing in yourself and your desires even if it all seems a little crazy at times.

I’m putting a call out to anyone who has a passionate message that needs to be shared to others through audio-visual storytelling: send through to pairidaezapictures.com/contact

@tarajasminaz