Memories take shape, as refugee, journalist, and architect ELAHE ZIVARDAR revisits six years of brutal detention by constructing a photo-realistic 3D simulation of Australia's NAURU REGIONAL PROCESSING CENTRE – a black site built in the world's smallest island nation and least visited country. Delving into the metaphysical significance of architecture, Elahe's search for justice becomes a profound rumination on the physical dimensions of torture, trauma, and healing.

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Resettled in the United States following a controversial "refugee swap," Elahe draws from the stark testimonies of other detainees and the largest trove of never-before-seen footage from inside the detention center to expose the facility, its architecture, and the amorality of the Border-Industrial Complex that profits at the expense of refugee and migrant incarceration.

 

She must move through her lingering trauma to imagine a new kind of place that is the antithesis of the corporate detention center – a radically utopian space of healing, which she calls "Aramsayesh Gah."

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ARCHITECT (formerly SEARCHING FOR ARAMSAYESH GAH) is a hybrid documentary exposing the cruel, secret architecture of refugee detention.