MagRalen

Award Winner

Film Info

Film Year: 2019

Film Duration: 18 min

Country: Canada

Language: Persian

Director

Maryam Zarei

Film Category

Best Short

Synopsis

A family of four live in a wrecking yard in Iran, suburban or Tehran. Mother and father both work at the same yard, dismantling and wrecking old cars. The two kids, a twelve year boy (Nima) and a four year girl (Tara), spend their time playing around the yard, and specially in an old emptied car which they have painted and decorated for themselves. Both kids are interested in driving and F1 races (Tara mispronouncing Maclaren F1 team Magralen), learning this from their dad who is a big fan of the sport, so they spend most of their days practicing imagined driving in the playing car. Supporting her little blind sister, Nima is always behind the wheel, explaining the imaginary outside view for Tara, and at the same time making car sounds and noises as if it really is moving. Mother and father, drowned in the every day hard work, do not get along and every once in a while they would fight about small things, but they do it without any sound and only by gestures and moving lips when they are near Tara. To fill up the silent moments of fights, Nima obliges himself to explain what is going on with parents to Tara, and for that he makes up safe and sweet stories preventing any emotional harm for his sister. This has become the family unwritten rule: Nima explains everything to Tara because parents cannot. Mother decides to leave the place and the family after a small missed incident at work; she leaves without telling the father and only by kissing the kids goodbye keeping them uninformed about her decision. Father starts a search for mother, leaving the kids alone and making Nima in charge of his sister. After one or two days of searching without any results, father has to restart the errands around the yard, and for that he needs the help of Nima, since he does not have the helping hand of the mother anymore. Tara is alone for the first time at their one room cabin. Bored Tara leaves the cabin to find the painted play car in yard, but she misses the way and gets lost among all the cars, She cannot go back to the cabin, so she sits somewhere and waits for help, until eventually Nima finds her. The same night Nima pictures their mother’s return for his blind sister and makes her laugh at the kiss that mother gives her before her sleep. The script ends with a dreamy however realistic scene where Tara, behind the wheel of the painted playing car, is driving the car very fast; the voice over is a commentator reporting a F1 race.