Cinema
The Runner
دونده
Amir Naderi · 1985
Synopsis
Amiro, eleven years old and an orphan, lives alone in a tanker stranded in the port of Abadan. He collects deposit bottles, sells iced water, shines shoes, and fights with the other boys for his share of the streets. He runs constantly, after trains and bicycles, and watches planes and ships leave, wondering where they are going; in the evening, he knocks at the door of the school to learn the alphabet.
Context
The film was produced by the Kanun, the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults, written with Behrouz Gharibpour and edited by Bahram Beyzai; the author drew on his own childhood in Abadan. He discovered his performer, Majid Niroumand, on the cover of a sports magazine, in the photo of an athletics team. Shot in 1363 of the Persian calendar, that is in 1984 or 1985, and released the following year, it was compared to Bicycle Thieves and The 400 Blows; restored in New York, it appeared in 2024 in the Criterion Collection.
Who it is for
A Persian-language film of an hour and a half, in colour. It is worth knowing that everything is conveyed through the body and movement, and that the child is in every shot.
Prizes and reception
Golden Montgolfière at the Three Continents Festival in Nantes, and one of the first post-revolution Iranian films to be celebrated abroad.