Without falling into miserability, Children of the sun, Iranian film in theaters Wednesday, December 29, denounces the misery of children condemned to work to survive through the touching portrait of Ali, 12, and three of his friends.
The camera of filmmaker Majid Majidi, the first Iranian selected for the Oscar for best foreign film in 1999 (Children of the sky), follows them to Tehran, where they live on expedients to help their families, while each having a secret dream: Ali wants to get his mother out of the hospice where she is interned, one of his friends wants to become a footballer …
“It is a film of social denunciation of a problem which concerns the whole world and not only Iran“, explained the director in an interview with AFP during the presentation of the film at the Venice Film Festival 2020.”Children are the most affected by this situation, as they represent the future of humanity.“.
To interpret its protagonists, Majid Majidi, a regular at international festivals, chose children living in the streets for “show their abilities and humanity“.”The casting took four months, 4,000 children were interviewed“, he summarized. In the end, it is Ali Nasirian, a kid overflowing with energy under his brown hair, who was chosen to play the hero. The right to education is at the center of the film, which shows how the possibility of going to school can revolutionize the daily lives of these adrift children.
Majid Majidi, who has “long experience in working with children“, underlines the extraordinary capacity of those forced to lead adult lives.”Touring with them is not complicated, because they are used to working to live and help their families.“.
Faced with the magnitude and complexity of the problems facing these children, the filmmaker is well aware that “economically and politically, one cannot hope for a radical change in their existence, because they do not have the appropriate context to grow normally“.”But we can try to help them find their way“, he concludes in a note of hope.