Capital Celluloid 2024 — Day 154: Tue Jun 4

The Runner (Naderi, 1984): BFI Southbank, NFT3, 6.15pm

This film is part of the Restored strand at BFI Southbank.

Time Out review:
An astonishing piece of film-making in which Amir Naderi's harsh account of modern poverty supports passages of extravagant but unsentimental lyricism. Amiro (Nirumand) is an illiterate ten-year-old orphan living in a rusting tanker hulk, beached in a Persian Gulf shantytown. Life is a struggle, and garbage-picking and peddling water just about pay for a watermelon diet. Bigger boys try to steal his empty bottles, a man snatches the block of ice he needs to cool the water he sells. Amiro learns to fight back. He's a runner, and he wants to run with the best of them. Young Nirumand gives a performance to make Rossellini weep, and the soundtrack is a joy.
Pierre Hodgson

Here (and above) is the trailer.

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