Sun Children

* Limited tickets available.

Best Film, 2020 Fajr International Film Festival
Marcello Mastroianni Award, 2020 Venice International Film Festival

12-year-old Ali and friends prowl the streets of Tehran, swiping parts off Mercedes and making a modest living in a parent-less world. The city’s leering adult crooks see in Ali and team some big-time ambition and small-human sizes, and thus enlist them on a secret mission: to enroll in a boys’ school, dig into its underground lair, and capture buried treasure.

Best known for sentimental childrens’ films like The Color of Paradise and Children of Heaven, director Majid Majidi returns to the international stage with a bang: a thrilling mix of social realism and a heist film. Between clever maneuvering and sweat-soaked getaways is a careful deliberation on child labor and pre-teen opportunity in contemporary Iran.

–Brian Hu

Co-Presented by Persian Cultural Center