A young orphan named Amiro lives alone in an abandoned tanker in the Iranian port city of Abadan. He survives by shining shoes, selling water, and collecting deposit bottles. Although he sometimes finds himself at odds with both adults and competing older kids, he finds solace in dreams about departing cargo ships and airplanes—and by running.
Majid NiroumandAmiroMusa TorkizadehAbbas NazeriAlireza GholmzadeAli PasdarzadeShirzad Bashkal
Two 9-year-old boys, Jontti and Länki, grow up in a Finnish seaside town in the 1960s. Länki's biggest dream is to run away on a ship to the sea where his father is rumoured to have died. Jontti too must discover that his father is not what he appears to be. When his dad moves away with another woman, Jontti is determined to win him back.
THE BRIGHT DAY weaves a story that has its roots in the complexity of Iran’s draconian laws governing capital punishment. A kindergarten teacher hopes to aid the father of one of her young students, a man accused of manslaughter, by convincing each of seven reluctant witnesses to come forward. No one lacks a hidden agenda in this drama in which shades of truth collide with self-interest and the specter of payback. (Gene Siskel Film Center)
One hot summer afternoon, two boys try to earn the cash for a movie in this beautiful evocation of the landscape of childhood.
Old Von Shultz, the first violin, finds as he grows older a longing for companionship. Hurrying from the theater the old musician finds little Helen sleeping on the steps of the stage door. He picks her up and takes her to his comfortably furnished home. The old man even grows childish, he is so pleased with the little tot's presence and he gives her the love with which his heart abounds. The next day he learns from the morning papers that Helen's mother and father were lost in a fire. He spends many happy hours with her, playing with her toys. He takes her to rehearsals with him, where she is the pet of the musicians. One year later Helen shows an aptness for the stage. This delights the old musician and the child grows nearer and dearer to his heart. A sad blow, however, comes to him when the Children's Society take the little girl away from him and once more he finds himself a lonely old man.
In 1992 Chicago, a story of two young legends in their own right begins. As wide-eyed and imaginative best friends Malik and Eric traverse the city, looking to escape the mundaneness of school and the hardships of growing up in public housing, their unbreakable bond is challenged when tragedy shakes their community just as they are learning to fly.
1959, support from US troops based in Asia and later from the Sates enables two actresses to start a charity for mixed-race 'orphans' who are locally neglected as outcasts. Thus originates Childhelp, which later runs multi-disciplinary centers for abused and/or neglected children in the States. Among them is bright Jacob Fletcher, whose stepfather, a lawyer, terrorized him into utter trauma and reclaims him shortly after 10 months in jail. Jacob's peers have distressing stories of their own, but competent, devoted staff helps most of them decisively on the former farm, using animal therapy.
Ambitious yakuza Kenji befriends harmonica-playing bartender Chuji, who moonlights as a part-time drug-dealer for the opposing gang. Their friendship is threatened by Kenji's plans for advancement, as well as by his bodyguards growing jealousy of Chuji.
In this Dickens adaptation, orphan Pip discovers through lawyer Mr. Jaggers that a mysterious benefactor wishes to ensure that he becomes a gentleman. Reunited with his childhood patron, Miss Havisham, and his first love, the beautiful but emotionally cold Estella, he discovers that the elderly spinster has gone mad from having been left at the altar as a young woman, and has made her charge into a warped, unfeeling heartbreaker.
Under the watch of his unkind realtives, lonely Bosse's luck is changed when he is sent to the land where his real father is the King. In that country, he sets out on a quest, together with his new friend, to destroy the evil Knight Kato.
After the accidental death of his son on a racetrack, Edward Milan, a wealthy industrialist, asks his nephew to find his grandson, who has been living in an orphanage for eleven years and whose existence he has just learned. But the boy, named Martineau, is suspicious of the police since he has been unjustly accused of shoplifting. He runs away when the two uniforms in charge of taking him back to his grandfather's house appear. He manages to find lodging with an old lady, a kleptomaniac at times, then with a theater prop master who is persecuted by his fiancée and finally with a lonely veterinarian.
A teenager reflects on his life after being accused of cheating on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?".
Eleven-year-old petty criminal Maroa lives with her violent grandmother Brigida in Caracas. After her boyfriend Carlos is involved in a shooting, Maroa is arrested and sent to a school where Joaquin conducts the youth orchestra, and he asks the naturally talented Maroa to join. Days now revolve around the classes that Joaquin, the shy and unconventional teacher, gives her. He is immediately interested in this talented young girl, who lacks all notion of discipline. Joaquin, the only person to offer hope in the midst of her rejection, finds that through Maroa, his world has also changed forever.
Mazie, a poor orphan girl, is mistreated by cruel farmer Slag and his wife for whom she works. Mazie, who is growing into a woman, does not like they way Slag has been looking at her lately.
Inspirational true story of Iranian dancer Afshin Ghaffarian, who risked his life for his dream to become a dancer despite a nationwide dancing ban.
Allison's life falls apart following her involvement in a fatal accident. The unlikely relationship she forms with her would-be father-in-law helps her live a life worth living.
Bahram Beyzai's poetic imagining of the circumstances that led to the death of Yazdgerd III, the last of the Sassanid kings of Iran. His death in 651, during the Arab invasions that brought Islam to this Zoroastrian realm, was mysterious: his corpse was discovered in a mill, but the cause of his death—and the whereabouts of his remains—are unknown.
Viridiana is preparing to start her life as a nun when she is sent, somewhat unwillingly, to visit her aging uncle, Don Jaime. He supports her; but the two have met only once. Jaime thinks Viridiana resembles his dead wife. Viridiana has secretly despised this man all her life and finds her worst fears proven when Jaime grows determined to seduce his pure niece. Viridiana becomes undone as her uncle upends the plans she had made to join the convent.
A man searching for his childhood best friend — a Polish violin prodigy orphaned in the Holocaust — who vanished decades before on the night of his first public performance.
After her mother's death, six-year-old Frida is sent to her uncle's family to live with them in the countryside. But Frida finds it hard to forget her mother and adapt to her new life.
Bullied at school and ignored and abused at home by his indifferent mother and older brother, Billy Casper, a 15-year-old working-class Yorkshire boy, tames and trains his pet kestrel falcon whom he names Kes. Helped and encouraged by his English teacher and his fellow students, Billy finally finds a positive purpose to his unhappy existence.