Sun Children

Sun Children (خورشید, 2021) is an Iranian drama from director Majid Majidi you can watch online on iFILM. Twelve-year-old Ali and three friends scrape by however they can — odd jobs in a garage, small-time hustles, all of it to keep their families fed.

Then Ali is handed an odd task: find a treasure buried in an underground tunnel. The catch is that the entrance sits beneath a charity called the Sun School, a place that takes in street kids and child laborers. To reach the dig, the boys have to enroll. And while Ali tunnels below, something unplanned happens above ground — for the first time, an adult treats him like he matters. The young cast is made up of non-professional actors, and lead Roohollah Zamani took home an acting prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Majidi keeps the sentimentality out: the treasure-hunt hook is really a clear-eyed look at child labor in modern Iran. It's tough and luminous at once, made for viewers who like arthouse cinema where hope is earned the hard way. Stream Sun Children (2021) online on iFILM.