🔻 Bazarkurdistan
The documentary Singing Wings, written and directed by Hemen Khaledi, won the award for Best Director of a Feature-Length Documentary at the iran Cinema Verité Festival. also won the Best Feature-Length Documentary Award at the Duhok Documentary Film Festival.
The film had previously received the Best Asian Documentary Award at the 30th Busan International Film Festival in South Korea.It was the only Iranian film at the Busan festival to win an award in the main competition section.
Singing Wings employs a restrained yet poetic visual language that closely aligns with its thematic concerns of coexistence, migration, and the passage of time. The film’s imagery is deeply rooted in the natural landscape, using the environment not merely as a backdrop but as an active narrative presence.
One of the most striking visual strategies of the film is its patient observational camera. Long, unhurried takes allow moments to unfold organically, encouraging the viewer to inhabit the rhythm of rural life. This temporal openness mirrors the slow pace of the elderly protagonist’s daily routines and contrasts with the implied urgency of the daughter’s impending migration.
The framing and composition emphasize balance and proximity rather than spectacle. Human figures are often placed within wide frames that include animals, water, and vegetation, visually reinforcing the film’s core idea of human–nature coexistence. The repeated visual pairing of the woman, her centenarian husband, and the injured stork creates a subtle triadic structure that blurs boundaries between species, age, and vulnerability.
Natural light plays a crucial role in shaping the film’s visual identity. The use of soft, diffused daylight and subdued color tones lends the images a tactile realism while avoiding romanticization. Earthy hues dominate the palette, grounding the film in its geographical and cultural specificity. Seasonal and atmospheric changes—fog, wind, reflections on water—are captured with attentiveness, suggesting the cyclical continuity of nature against the linear movement of human life.
Lake Zarivar is filmed with a quiet, mythic sensibility. Rather than grand panoramic shots, the camera often focuses on intimate details—ripples on the water, birds in motion, reflections—allowing the lake to function as a visual metaphor for memory, transition, and liminality. These images subtly echo the themes of departure and endurance without resorting to overt symbolism.
The film’s minimalist visual approach avoids dramatic camera movements or stylized aesthetics. Instead, it favors stillness and proximity, creating a sense of ethical looking—watching without intrusion. This visual restraint supports the film’s nonjudgmental stance on migration and rural life, positioning the viewer as a witness rather than an interpreter.
SINGING WINGS has a running time of 73 minutes. It will play the BFI London Film Festival and is competition for the Grierson Award.