Bashu, the Little Stranger
(Bashu, gharibeth kouchak)

by Bahram Beyzai

Iran

Director: Bahram Beyzai

Script: Bahram Beyzai

Cinematographer: F. Malekzadeh

Editor: Bahram Beyzai

Cast: Sussan Taslimi, Parviz Purhoseini, Adnan Afravian

Production: Institute for Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (IIDCYA)

Distribution:
Carlotta Films
9 Passage de la Boule Blanche
75012 Paris
France
Tel: 0033 1.42.24.10.86
Fax: 0033 1.42.24.16.78
Mail: [email protected]
www.carlottafilms.com

Year: 1986

35 mm, Colour, 120 min
OV Farsi with French Subtitles

In south of Iran, a ten-year-old boy hides in a lorry to escape the Iraqi bombs which killed his parents. In northern Iran a poor old woman takes him in and looks after him, in addition to her two children she is raising on her own. Bashu is dark, he does not speak the same language than the villagers who look at him as a stranger, an intruder, another mouth to feed who perhaps will bring bad luck. With great patience and energy, Nale succeeds in getting closer to Bashu and makes him become part of her family.

The film is a plea for tolerance, against war, as well as a beautiful love story of a mother for an abandoned child for whom she becomes a second mother. Shot in 1985, at the heart of the conflict between Iran and Iraq, the film was forbidden in Iran.

To be a child born in a country at war, to be a stranger in one’s own country...