The movie takes place in a small Kurdish village on the border of Turkey and Iraq before the impending American invasion where Satellite is the unofficial village leader for his ability to install satellite dishes and organize the village and refugee children into landmine collection groups.
Satellite’s authority is soon compromised by the appearance of an armless boy, Henkov, who has the ability to predict the future and his beautiful sister, Agrin, who captures Satellite’s heart. However, she is haunted by demons of her past that are portrayed in flashbacks which justify the movie’s PG-13 rating.
Satellite is well acted by young Soran Ebrahim. Ebrahim portrays Satellite to be a heroic purveyor of wisdom that everyone looks to for help. He is kind hearted and selfless, and creates a following of all the local children. When he is injured towards the end of the film we are again able to see that he is just a normal 13-year-old boy who has set a standard of personal character that we can also achieve.
Ghobadi does an excellent job portraying the stark beauty of the Iraqi landscape, but more importantly he juxtaposes the story against the impending American Invasion.
In 2005, “Turtles Can Fly” won the Peace Film Award at Berlin’s 55th International Film Festival, and the Golden Shell Award at the 52nd San Sebastian Film Festival.
Ghobadi chose to make the Iraqi street children the main characters in his film to show the other side to war, those whose lives it affects. He also infused a sense of realism into the movie by not casting actors but local kids. Some of them even have missing arms and deformed legs, possibly caused by landmines.
“I wish to dedicate my film to all the innocent children in the world, the casualties of the policies of dictators and fascists.” Ghobadi said in an interview at the movie’s official website. “Three days after the collapse of Saddam, I went to Baghdad to show my film “Songs of My Motherland” as it was being released. With the small DV camera I was carrying, I shot for a few weeks what I had witnessed in Baghdad, as well as in the other cities.
“Back in Iran, I had second thoughts, and a few days later I went back to Iraq to make a film about what had upset me: the mined lands, the crippled children, and the people at a loss.”
