On Wednesday 8th July, @mothership.marrickville, Miya Miya Film Club presents: Turtles Can Fly (لاکپشتها هم پرواز میکنند, Iraq/Iran, 2004), directed by Bahman Ghobadi.
Set in a Kurdish refugee camp on the Iraq–Turkey border in the days before the American invasion of Iraq, Turtles Can Fly follows a group of children waiting for a war they know is coming. Satellite, a resourceful boy and unofficial leader within the camp, navigates a landscape where survival depends on improvisation and where childhood has already been interrupted by forces far larger than those around him.
Children move through the film with a restless energy: collecting landmines, trading information and searching for signals from a world beyond the camp. Around them, adults wait anxiously for political change, but the children are already living with its consequences. The film inhabits an uneasy space between anticipation and aftermath, where war is both approaching and already present.
The cast includes real refugees, amputees and children living with physical disabilities. Rather than standing outside the realities it depicts, Turtles Can Fly remains deeply connected to them. The physical and psychological aftermath of war is felt through bodies, landscapes and everyday life, grounding its portrayal of conflict in lived experience.
Ghobadi’s cinema often moves through borderlands and places suspended between states, identities and futures. Turtles Can Fly is attentive to resilience, friendship and play, but never in ways detached from political reality. It understands childhood not as a protected space outside history, but as something shaped by it entirely.
On the night, we’ll be sharing chicken or vegetable türlü, a slow-cooked dish made to be gathered around and shared together. Y
Your ticket cost includes a meal, film licencing, venue and projector hire, drinks from @gazacola.au, and a donation to @thepcrf and their Gaza Amputee Program.
The film will be screened in Kurdish with English subtitles.
Please be aware that photography, audio, and video recording may occur at this event. By entering the event premises, you consent to being photographed, filmed, and/or otherwise recorded. You agree that any recorded media—including your likeness, voice, and name; may be used for, but not limited to, promotional, marketing, advertising, and archival purposes, and may be shared on social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok) and websites.