‘All Alone’ screening at Lok Virsa today

Islamabad: Iranian movie ‘All Alone’ (Tanhai Tanhai Tanha) unspools at Lok Virsa Mandwa Film Club today (January 19) at 3 pm.

Directed by Ehsan Adipour in 2013, the film deals with a serious subject but that plays in the background and does not concern our main characters. The film takes us to a Persian Gulf island. A boy goes to school and supports the family by selling fish. He dreams but nobody in the village ever believes in his dreams. He friends a Russian boy of his own age whose engineer father is working on a nuclear project. The best part of the friendship is that neither of them speaks the language in which they can communicate. The conflict comes when the nuclear project comes to a halt and Russian boy has to leave. The island meanwhile is cut off from the rest of the world. Our young hero is not going to sit around idle for things to happen. He writes a letter and wants to read it to the leaders who have gathered around for a conference in Europe. The friendship now at stake has to be saved by opening the nuclear project. According to the director "I did not want to make political comment but just want to show the friendship and how it can be restored for good times to return.

Personal bond of friendship between two boys who don't even speak the same language is our premise here. Nuclear sanctions and closing of the nuclear plant means nothing to the two boys. All what matters to them is that their friendship should not fall apart.

The film has been made moderately with bare minimum production effects but it carries a strong and different perspective to what appears on the surface.

aijazzgul@gmail.com