BERLIN (AFP) — A bittersweet parable about the struggles of a rural family outside Tehran, and a documentary on a heavy metal band in Baghdad offered contrasting slices of life in contemporary Iran and Iraq at the Berlin Film Festival on Sunday.
In "The Song of Sparrows," the Oscar-nominated Iranian director Majid Majidi tells the story of Karim, who lives contentedly with his wife and children on the outskirts of the capital and works on an ostrich farm.
After events result in him being fired, Karim is forced to search for work in the city where his efforts to eke out a living lead to further problems for both himself and his family.
The film, which received its world premiere in Berlin where it is one of 21 entries competing for the Golden Bear top prize, is a gentle cautionary tale that contrasts pastoral innocence with urban guile.
"For me ,the message is that we shouldn't keep asking for more and more, or make too many demands which will only lead us to ruin," Majidi said after a press screening.
Muslim beliefs and traditions are interwoven into the film's fabric, but always as a cultural reference point rather than a religious ideology.
"My religious convictions are rooted in family," Majidi said.
I grew up in a religious family and these values have accompanied me all my life. For me the question is not what we believe, but where our religious values take us and what they lead us to do."
As with "The Children of Heaven," for which Majidi received an Oscar nomination in 1999, "The Song of Sparrows" also focuses on the innocence and ingenuity of young children when faced with hardship.
A wholly different take on Muslim youth culture is provided by the documentary "Heavy Metal in Baghdad" which was shown out of competition in Berlin.
The film's focus is Iraqi thrash metal band Acrassicauda who, with the help of the New York-based counterculture magazine VICE, put on a sold-out show in Baghdad in 2005.
When the VICE crew heads back to Iraq in hopes of locating the band once again, they find both country and band torn apart by war, with buildings and rehearsal studios destroyed by bombs and group members unable to traverse the bullet-filled blocks that separate them.
This year's Berlinale also offered a clutch of films dealing with aspects of sexuality and Islam that have long been considered taboo.
Indian director Parvez Sharma's "A Jihad for Love," a documentary about gay and lesbian Muslims, includes interviews with Muslim homosexuals from 12 countries, while Tanaz Eshaghian's "Be Like Others" examines the ramifications of undergoing a sex change in Iran.
Another documentary "The Other Side of Istanbul," by Dondu Kilic, explores discrimination in Turkey's capital from the perspective of a gay man whose family has accepted his homosexuality.
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