‘Sun Children’ among top five picks of Oscar nominees

Todd McCarthy, a critic of Deadline website, has published a list of films that are among top picks for best international feature nominations of 2021 Oscars.

Directed by Majid Majidi, Iran’s Oscar-shortlisted ‘Sun Children’ has received a warm welcome from national and international audience and critics and is the fifth film on McCarthy’s list.  

McCarthy writes, “Majid Majidi’s Sun Children from Iran focuses on street children who learn how to deal with life’s challenges from an early age. Despite the potentially depressing milieu, the eyes-wide-open, generous-spirited, undidactic Majidi believes so whole-heartedly in the positive aspects of the human spirit that the good can usually at least slightly outweigh the bad”.

Co-written by Nima Javidi and Majidi, some notable actors such as Ali Nasiriyan, Javad Ezzati, and Tannaz Tabatabaee have appeared in the film.

‘Sun Children’ tells the story of a 12-year-old boy and his three friends. They work quite hard to financially support their needy families while they sometimes commit petty crimes to make easy money.

Everything changes, however, when one of them is entrusted to find a hidden treasure underground, but he must first enroll at the Sun (Khorshid) School, a charitable institution that tries to educate street kids and children suffering child labor.

Todd McCarthy previously wrote a review on ‘Sun Children’ where he described the kids in Majidi’s film as being “forced by their lot in life to be resourceful at an early age, they can be crafty, devious, sneaky, brazen, misguided and sometimes ingenious — by turns obliged to live by their wits more than most children their age.

The movie has gone on screen at several global events, including the 77th Venice Film Festival in Italy, where it brought the Marcello Mastroianni Award to its young actor Rouhollah Zamani.

PR/MM