Filmed over six years in Turkey, this is a wonderful account of an Iranian family in exile desperately seeking asylum
Here’s a documentary that gives off warmth like a radiator, generating huge amounts of empathy. I’m not sure I’ve seen another film that has so movingly put the audience in the shoes of a refugee: the emptiness of leaving everything behind, belonging to nowhere, having nothing.
“You’re here, but you don’t exist,” says Leila, an English teacher who flees Iran at the start of the film with her partner, Sahand, and their four-year-old son, Mani. Leila and Sahand were both married to other people when they met, and Mani has grown up calling Sahand “uncle”. In Iran their relationship is punishable by death, so they leave to find a normal family life together.
Continue reading…Filmed over six years in Turkey, this is a wonderful account of an Iranian family in exile desperately seeking asylumHere’s a documentary that gives off warmth like a radiator, generating huge amounts of empathy. I’m not sure I’ve seen another film that has so movingly put the audience in the shoes of a refugee: the emptiness of leaving everything behind, belonging to nowhere, having nothing. “You’re here, but you don’t exist,” says Leila, an English teacher who flees Iran at the start of the film with her partner, Sahand, and their four-year-old son, Mani. Leila and Sahand were both married to other people when they met, and Mani has grown up calling Sahand “uncle”. In Iran their relationship is punishable by death, so they leave to find a normal family life together. Continue reading…