Starless Dreams

Synopsis

A haunting portrait of stolen childhood, Starless Dreams plunges the viewer into the lives of seven young teenage girls sharing temporary quarters at a rehabilitation and correction center on the outskirts of Tehran. As the New Year approaches, the girls bond and reveal with disarming and often playful honesty the circumstances and acts that resulted in their incarceration. One girl killed her father; another robbed a bank; another was arrested for carrying 651 grams of cocaine. The girls' sisterly bond brings them to sing and dance with hope and allows them to share their tears. Outside the prison walls, danger is everywhere, even within their own families.

Oskouei, one of Iran's most prominent directors, spent seven years securing access to this all-female facility. With incredible empathy, Starless Dreams delivers an unforgettable cinematic portrayal of restored innocence and humanity.

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Reviews

Scott Tobias of Variety said, "Oskouei is given a window into homes where, as one subject puts it, "pain drips from the walls," but "Starless Dreams" isn't a cavalcade of misery. With confinement comes safety, and with a roomful of like-aged girls from common backgrounds, the rare opportunity for friendship and fun."

Leigh Kolb of Bitch Media said, "Oskouei's style as a documentarian would seem invasive if it weren't so empathetic. His voice is present and strong, and he asks the girls probing questions: about their crimes, about their histories, and about their hopes."

Stephen Holden from The New York Times said, "Roger Ebert once called the movies 'a machine that generates empathy,' and Starless Dreams ... is just such a machine. With the conceptual rigor and emotional directness associated with the best of Iranian cinema Oskouei simply listens to the stories of those who have never been listened to before."

Deborah Young from The Hollywood Reporter said, "Mehrdad Oskouei's reputation as one of Iran's finest documentary filmmakers grows film by film. Starless Dreams is the perfect example of how powerful simplicity can be, when it's underpinned by compassion for its subject."

Kenigsperg from The New York Times said, Although the movie bears some resemblance to the films made by Frederick Wiseman within institutions, the acknowledged presence of the director, Mehrdad Oskouei, creates a constant tension. The girls — identified by first names or nicknames like 'Nobody' and '651' — show varying degrees of comfort with Mr. Oskouei's questions, some matter-of-factly discussing drugs or stabbings, and others seemingly reluctant to look toward the camera. Yet 'Starless Dreams' suggests that the center's grounds, where the girls play in the snow or work in a greenhouse, are kinder than the world outside, and that release is a fraught prospect. So if 'Starless Dreams' inspires conflicted feelings in viewers, it may be by design. It's hard not to want to flee, and it's hard to look away."

Kenji Fujishima from KINO SCOPE said, In some ways, Starless Dreams is a standard talking-heads documentary, with much of it made up of Oskouei’s interviews with the girls in the detention center as learns their histories and how they feel about their lives. But he also alternates these intimate chats with more Frederick Wiseman-esque observational segments of the girls playing and interacting with authority figures and relatives. These fly-on-the-wall scenes help transcend the grim nature of the film’s subject, showing how capable these troubled girls still are of experiencing childlike wonder.