The White Balloon

Iran, 1995

Director Jafar Panahi’s debut feature, The White Balloon, won the Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and announced the arrival of a major new voice on the international film scene. A simply presented but powerful moving fable of perseverance, it follows a young girl as she overcomes the obstacles of the big city on her way to buy a goldfish for Nowruz, the Iranian New Year. Among The Guardian newspaper’s top 50 family films of all time, The White Balloon is also on the British Film Institute’s list of 50 films you should see by the age of 14.

35mm, color, in Persian with English subtitles, 85 min. Director: Jafar Panahi. Screenwriter: Abbas Kiarostami. With: Aida Mohammadkhani, Mohsen Kafili, Fereshteh Sadre Orafaiy.