Turtles Can Fly

This is the great film I saw yesterday. Please see it if you can.

"Turtles Can Fly is a 2004 film written and directed by Iranian filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi. It is the first film to be made in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. The film is set in a Kurdish refugee camp on the Iraqi-Turkish border on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq. Thirteen-year-old Soran is known as "Satellite" for his installation of dishes and antennae for local villages looking for news of Saddam. He is the dynamic leader of the children, organising the dangerous but necessary sweeping and clearing of the minefields. He then arranges trade-ins for the unexploded mines. The industrious Soran falls for an unlikely orphan named Agrin, a sad-faced girl traveling with her brother Henkov, who appears to have the gift of clairvoyance. The siblings are care-taking a three-year-old, whose connection to the pair is discovered as harsh truths are revealed."

It's funny, but the synopsis given by the director is totally different to the common one: "There are a couple of days left to the beginning of the war between America and Iraq.The perplexed Iraqis are after receiving the latest news of the war.Among these people there is a 14-year-old mother by the name Agrin who wants to commit suicide. This film is a narrative about Agrin’s adventures."

I told Enso and another Iranian guy who is with him at Baxter that I saw this film and was told that the director's brother spent 5 years in detention in Australia - apparently released last month.