The culture you consume every day leaves small imprints on your life, but some texts or moments feel bigger than a single experience. In this article, Nazanin Boniadi, award-nominated actress, renowned activist,  and Steering Committee member of the World Movement for Democracy, shares her stories about the concert, film, and book that inspired her activism and advocacy. She describes how Fereydoun Farrokhzad’s unique combination of creativity and courage continues to inspire her advocacy work on Iran to this day and how Roman Holiday ignited her passion for cinema. Boniadi also shares how reading George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four as a high school student introduced her to concepts of totalitarianism and mass surveillance. Boniadi notes that to this day, these texts spring to mind whenever witnessing the abuse of power, the obfuscation of truth, and the denial of free expression, as a powerful reminder to never take our freedoms or democracy for granted.

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