Turtles Can Fly

This heartbreaking film is the first made in Iraq since the fall of Saddam. It takes place in a Kurdish refugee camp near the Iraq-Turkey border and primarily focuses on the large number of orphans at the camp. The leader of these children, and in fact the entire village really, is a resourcefull 13ish-year-old named Satellite who gained his position thanks to his ability to install antennas and satellite dishes for the village elders to watch the news about the upcoming U.S. invasion of Iraq. He also speaks English and can translate for them. The children spend much of their time disarming land mines around the area which has left many of them without arms, legs, or hands. An armless, clairvoyant boy and his beautiful young sister arrive in the village, they have with them a blind baby which is presumed to be their younger brother. It is later revealed that it is the result of the girl's rape by and Iraqi soldier. She hates her child and what he represents. It's a devastating, yet beautiful film about life and survival in unimaginable circumstances. Director Bahman Ghobadi gets some wonderful performances out of his non-professional cast of children, and he gives us a behind the scenes look at the lives of orphans in a behinds the scenes world. Like Born Into Brothels, these are the children without a voice (who probably don't even realize the gravity of their own situations), and without a future, yet somehow many of them still manage to endure and survive.