The Song of Sparrows

Colour, 35 mm
Iran, 2008, 96 min
Section: Horizons

Synopsis

Karim is sacked from the ostrich farm where he works and goes to Teheran to be able to provide for his beloved wife, Narges, and their three children. By chance, fortune finds him a moped taxi, and he begins weaving his way through the busy streets of Teheran, taking his clients where they want to go. Karim’s contact with this new world cannot go on for long without consequences. Will he be able to resist the influences that threaten his hitherto safe and simple world? Seasoned director Majid Majidi offers up distinctive reminiscences of Italian neo-realism, particularly of De Sica’s masterpiece Bicycle Thieves. In a story about how civilisation and technology can destroy a man, he uses amateur actors as a medium through which he pits the big-city environment against his protagonist’s world of pure values: family, friends and nature. This metaphorical fable of moral corruption and redemption that avoids sentiment and wagers on the lightly humorous lyricism of everyday life, won the actor playing Karim, Reza Naji, a Silver Bear at this year’s Berlinale.

About the director

Majid Majidi (b. 1959, Teheran) studied acting and worked for a number of years as an actor on both the stage and screen. He began filming documentaries and shorts in the 1980s. In 1995 he debuted with a drama about kidnapping, Baduk, which was inspired by actual events. His tragicomedy Children of Heaven (Bacheha-ye aseman, 1997) won the prize for Best Film in Montreal, was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and in his native Iran was the biggest box-office hit of all time. He also filmed the drama The Father (Pedar, 1996 – Jury Prize at the San Sebastian IFF), the story of a blind boy The Colour of Paradise (Rang-e khoda, 1999), the love story Baran (2001), screened at the KVIFF in 2002, and the existentialist drama The Willow Tree (Beed-e majnoon, 2005).