Sam Yazdanpanna left his native country at the age of sixteen and arrived in the Netherlands in 1998. Most of his time spent studying at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam he was an illegal immigrant, but his stay was legalised by means of a general pardon in 2007. In his work, he researches the transformation of identity. Sam graduated at the Netherlandse film and television academy in 2012.

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“Just like me, many of my friends were smuggled by plane or by road to a new, different country. I will never forget my own long journey from Iran to The Netherlands. These experiences form the basis for much of my work. I have returned to the starting point of it: a long journey without control over anything. We all had to cut off the ties with our native country. We had no idea what the future would hold, except that we were facing risks and dangers all along the way. These experiences dominate my life. The question is: what do I do with it?”