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London
Children who lost limbs clearing mines are leading
players in a new film
THE first feature film to come out of Iraq since
Saddam Hussein took power in 1979 will receive its
British premiere at The Times bfi London Film
Festival.
Turtles Can Fly, an Iran-Iraq co-production, was
shot on location at an Iraqi refugee camp near the
Turkish border.
The actors, mostly children, are not professionals
and many are missing limbs from clearing landmines
that they can sell to UN forces. It is one of the
few ways they can earn a living.
One of the main characters, played by Hirsh Feyssal,
is first shown disarming a mine with his teeth. It
becomes clear that he is not using his hands because
his arms have been destroyed in a previous
explosion. The actor also lost his arms attempting
to defuse a mine.
In another scene, a farmer complains that the
children sent to clear his land of mines have no
hands. The foreman responds: “They are the best I
have. They have no fear.”
The film’s message is strongly antiwar. Initially
the Kurdish village places its faith in America, and
sells its radios to buy a satellite dish so it can
receive news from Western television channels about
when the war will begin. At the end of the film
there is footage of genuine American soldiers
marching through the village, ignoring the children.
Bahman Ghobadi, the director, said that he was
inspired to make the film after visiting Baghdad
days after Saddam fled the city. “I went back to
Iraq to make a film about what had upset me — the
mined lands, the crippled children, the people at a
loss, the worsened security situation,” he said. “It
looked as if war was just beginning.” The director,
an Iranian Kurd and a protégé of fellow Iranian
director Abbas Kiarostami, began shooting three
months later.
“Just as the world TV networks were announcing the
end of the war, I began to make a film whose leading
stars were neither Bush nor Saddam. Nobody mentioned
the Iraqi people. In my film, the supporting cast
are Bush and Saddam. The Iraqi people and the street
children play the leading parts.”
Mr Ghobadi’s film company has already signed a deal
with the Institute of Contemporary Arts for
distribution rights in Britain, and expects to
complete a deal in America shortly.
Philip Dodd, director of the ICA, said that the film
was worthy of a gala performance. “Turtles Can Fly
shows that film at its best can be unbearably
topical and at the same time marvellously poetic,”
he said.
The film has earned critical acclaim, and won a
Golden Shell at the San Sebastián film festival in
Spain last month. Variety magazine described Mr
Ghobadi’s third feature film as engrossing and
nuanced.
The director said that his film was not designed to
be uplifting. “Once the film is over, you realise
that the past is bitter, that the present is bitter,
and that you should look up to no one but yourself
for the future,” he said. “Powerful foreigners have
no intention to create a heaven for us. As far as
they’re concerned, they are exploiting us to have
wonderful places they can enjoy.”
Turtles Can Fly has its British premiere at the
National Film Theatre on November 2.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk
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