Turtles Can Fly (Lakposhtha Ham Parvaz Mikonand)

Relegated to a refugee camp near the Iraqi-Turkish border, a community of Kurdish children and adults eke out a living by defusing land mines (sometimes unsuccessfully) and selling them to U.N. representatives. It is 2003 and no one in the camp realizes that the brutal regime of their tormentor, Saddam Hussein, is about to come to an end. Living in a post-apocalyptic environment of burned-out tanks, abandoned high-tech equipment, and ubiquitous, still deadly mines, a 13-year-old boy acquires a satellite dish on the techno-black market and earns a proud nickname (“Satellite”) and the respect of the tribal elders by tuning into a news network which announces the imminent invasion of Iraq. With that news comes the slightest hope that life will not have to remain so grim and dangerous for the Kurdish people.

-- Chale Nafus, Director of Programming, Austin Film Society