Turtles Can Fly

Turtles Can Fly (2004) is an Iranian drama directed by Bahman Ghobadi that you can watch online on iFILM. Shot entirely on location in a Kurdish refugee camp on the Turkey-Iraq border, it was filmed in the days just before the 2003 US-led invasion — with a cast of non-professional children, many of whom had lived through war themselves.

A resourceful boy nicknamed Satellite organises other kids to dig up landmines and sell them for scrap. When a mute boy with no arms and his blind sister arrive at the camp, Satellite becomes fixated on uncovering their story. Ghobadi made something raw here: no sets, no distance, no comfort. The violence of war is filtered entirely through the eyes of children, and that angle makes it land harder than almost any war film made by adults. Stream Turtles Can Fly (2004) online on iFILM.