Experiencing Interruptions?
Password

The Lowland

Lowland is an intimate portrait of a community of undocumented migrant Afghan children, living and working as garbage collectors in the margins of Tehran. Over the course of five years, the two filmmakers, Sepideh and Aidin, documented their encounters with the children first as ethnographers and volunteer teachers, and later as filmmakers. The film is an assemblage of personal everyday stories and gestures shared by the children of the Lowland as powerful individuals rather than mere child workers.

  • Aidin Halalzadeh
    Director
  • Sepideh Salarvand
    Director
  • Aidin Halalzadeh
    Producer
  • Bahman Kiarostami
    Producer
  • Bahman Kiarostami
    Editor
  • Sepideh Salarvand
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Feature
  • Runtime:
    52 minutes 20 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    July 26, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    3,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Iran, Islamic Republic of
  • Country of Filming:
    Iran, Islamic Republic of
  • Language:
    Persian
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • 15th Cinema Vérité, Tehran
    Tehran
    Iran, Islamic Republic of
    December 10, 2021
    Iran, National Premiere
    Nominee for Best Director in mid-length Documentary
  • Mimesis Documentary Festival
    Boulder, Colorado
    United States
    August 3, 2022
    North American Premiere
    Mission Zero Fund Prize
  • Concepcion Independent Film Awards
    Concepción, Bío Bío
    Chile
    August 3, 2022
    South American Premiere
    Best Documentary Feature
  • MAAM -Muestra de Antropología Audiovisual de Madrid
    Madrid
    Spain
    November 7, 2022
    Europe Premiere
    Best Documentary
Director Biography - Aidin Halalzadeh, Sepideh Salarvand

Sepideh Salarvand was born in 1991 in Tehran, Iran. she has a MA in cultural studies and when she was a student she also Teaches Afghan immigrant children (who can’t go to public school because of their nationality) In a famous NGO in Tehran, for three years. And in that time she also start to visit a dumpsite near Tehran two times a week and doing an ethnography about the children who works there.
In five years Sepideh and Aidin Halalzadeh spend all the weekends there and Sepideh wrote her master's thesis about that Filed, published in 2020 as a book named "I Could Not Speak". In these years they also filming with children and they directed their first documentary about these children called "the Lowland".
Nowadays Sepideh works as a manager in an NGO in Tehran and also working on another research about working children in Farsi Literature.

Add Director Biography