THE LITTLE REFUGEE
Style: Feature film
Genre: Drama
Year: 2020
Country: Iran, Turkey
Language: English, Kurdish, Arabic, Persian
Duration: 89 min
Production: MIJ FILM
Director: Batin Ghobadi
Screenplay: Batin Ghobadi
Producers: Mohammad Ahmadi, Lydia Dean Pilcher, Golriz Ehtiati, Batin Ghobadi
Operator: Morteza Najafi
Music: Babak Mirzakhani
Starring: Nader Fallah, Farshid Gavili, Paria Vaziri
BATIN GHOBADI
Batin Ghobadi was born in 1979 in Banya, Iran. He was five years old when he began to study academic drawing and held several exhibitions in his youth. Because of his older brother Bahman Ghobadi, he switched to cinema and directed his first short film, The Artist, in 2000 when he was 18 years old. By the age of 23, he had directed several other short films, including Ask the Wind (2010), which won Crystal Bear at the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival. Mardan (2014) was Ghobadi's debut film. It was selected for Iraqi Performance for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2015 Academy Awards and premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. The Little Refugee is his second feature film.
ABOUT THE FILM
In 2015, the body of Alan, a Kurdish boy from Syria, was found on a beach in Bodrum, Turkey. The picture shocked and warned the world about the refugee crisis. The film shows what could have happened to this child before the day when the boat, on which he was with his family on the way to Greece, capsized on the high seas. The story is born out of a moment of magical realism, when Alan's spirit leaves his body and returns to the world of refugees and displaced war victims hoping to get to a better life.
AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS:
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São Paulo International Film Festival - Nomination