Sun Children

Dedicated to ‘the 152m children forced into child labour and all those who fight for their rights’, veteran Iranian director Majid Majidi’s gorgeously shot and directed drama focuses on a gang of child thieves, headed by 12-year-old Ali (Rouhollah Zamani), in Tehran, who are enlisted by crime boss Heshem (Ali Nasirian) to retrieve a treasure buried in the water pipes beneath the ‘Sun School’—a local community organization made up of volunteers determined to educate the street kids and child labourers overlooked by Iran’s public education system. What Majidi achieves with this set-up is a powerful humanist paean to children desperate to claw their way out of poverty and the ways in which education can help them do so.

‘“Sun Children” opens with a series of striking shots. A montage rifles through images of swanky car hoods as a band of pint-size carjackers try to find their pick in a garage; a boy runs through Tehran, the streets rippling around him like water; kids frolic in a circular pool that, shot from above, sparkles like a blue sun. Majid Majidi’s latest feature doesn’t lack in style or charm, using a child’s perspective—a staple in Iranian cinema—to locate beauty and hope in a cynical world.’—Devika Girish, The New York Times