Film details
- Director
- Mohammadreza Ardalan
- Country
- Iran
- Duration
- 98 min
- Language
- Persian
Director’s statement
Paltry Farm tells the story of a 13-year-old child laborer named Hawar, a Kurdish boy displaced from Iraq who has entered Iran illegally. He lost his family in 1991 during the mass killing of Kurds carried out under Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, and his village was wiped out.
Unlike his experience in Iraq, where he existed in the role of a victim, Hawar must take on a more active role in Iran to survive. His character arc traces a transformation from a fear-stricken victim into a courageous fighter. The film also critiques man-made borders: Hawar’s lack of identification in Iran places him in a state of absolute vulnerability, where anyone could harm him without facing legal consequences.
Hawar undergoes a rapid and premature coming-of-age that does not align with his natural biological development — a reality faced by child laborers and children exposed to war. In this sense, the film speaks to the experiences of society’s excluded and marginalized.
Synopsis
A homeless, undocumented child named Havar enters Iran from Iraq and is hired at a remote poultry farm on the outskirts of Tehran. There, he befriends an adult worker named Yaghoub. Soon after, Yaghoub disappears for unknown reasons. Havar begins searching for clues about what happened to him, but this search puts his own life in danger.
Mohammadreza Ardalan
Director
Mohammadreza Ardalan was born in 1982 in Ravansar, Kermanshah, Iran. He earned his Bachelor's degree in Cinema from Tehran University of Art in 2010 and his Master's degree in Cinema from Soore University of Art in Tehran in 2016. His thesis was titled "Pasolini's Cinema and Walter Benjamin's Political Theology." He participated in numerous student projects as assistant director, editor, screenwriter, etc. In 2018, he directed the semi-feature film "Quarantine," which successfully entered the Tehran Short Film Festival and won various awards such as the Best Film Award from the Kurdish Film Festival in London, the Best Directing Award from the Kobane Film Festival, the Best Film Award from the Hamburg Kurdish Film Festival, etc.