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Mine trading child refugees

Thursday, June 23, 2005 ★ 22:02 ★ Category Films

He carefully moves his head to the landmine and closes his lips around the firing pin. Will it explode? The boy with no arms is confident it won’t and finishes his daily routine. The mine does not explode. Not this time.

Bahman Ghobadi, an Iranian-Kurdish filmmaker, shows the terrible situation in a Kurdish refugee camp in Iraq during the period just before the American invasion started.

A group of children clear field after field from mines, day after day. Satellite, the group’s leader, organizes meetings and tells the other children which field to clear next. Satellite knows where to sell the mines. He knows where to buy guns. He knows where to get the satellite dish needed to receive news about the pending invasion. Satellite is a child, at most 15 years old. He knows how to deal with life in a refugee camp.

Agrin collecting landmines

Agrin collecting landmines

The boy with no arms and his younger sister Agrin carry a three-year old child with them. Their little brother, you might think, until you discover that the little one is in fact Agrin’s child, born after being raped by Iraqi soldiers. She can neither love the child, nor leave it behind. Their lives are a misery.

Lakposhtha hâm parvaz mikonand, as the film is titled, better known as Turtles can Fly has been awarded several times. Last year, it won the Audience Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (Netherlands).