Part of Maybe If You Smile They Will One Day All Return

Director: Bahman Gohbadi

2004 / 98min / 35mm

In the weeks leading up to the fall of Saddam Hussein, the residents of a Kurdish refugee camp on the mountainous border between Turkey and Iraq await the arrival of US-led forces. A 13-year-old, known by his friends as “Satellite,” earns pocket money leading a small gang of orphaned kids in scrounging up undetonated landmines, and in his downtime finds himself pulled into the orbit of Agrin, a melancholy mother at 14, whose brother, Hengov, appears to have gained psychic abilities after being maimed by a mine, posing a threat to Satellite’s top-dog status among the camp youth. The scuffling of adolescents is contrasted to quarrels on a far larger scale, to devastating effect. “We are in the hands of a master… [Ghobadi’s] imagery is so boilingly alive that we come away from [Turtles Can Fly] feeling exhilarated.” —LA Weekly

Distributor: Le bureau