Looteyo

While Mansour (Mansour Daryanavard) is happily playing soccer on the beach, his father falls victim to gunfire between drug dealers and the water police, shot dead by a stray bullet. From then on, the enterprising lad takes on responsibility for his mother. Her dream is to open a café on the Iranian island of Hormuz, where she and her son lead a modest existence. Mansour tries his hand at being a tourist guide, using his cycle rickshaw to ferry bored city dwellers through the handsome rocky landscapes of his home island. When someone asks him to do a one-off courier job, he senses an opportunity for big money. He is hardly aware of the dangers involved in this scheme. 

In Looteyo, the laudable feature film debut of Iranian-born Ashkan Nematian, the tradition of Abbas Kiarostami’s early work is carried on under different auspices. Mansour’s resolute resourcefulness, driven by hope for a better life, is at times reminiscent of the restless young soccer fan in Kiarostami’s The Traveler (Mosāfer, 1974). Like his legendary role model, Nematian, who studied at the University of Arts Linz, sketches en passant a carefree but frayed portrait of everyday life and a social panorama full of noteworthy details. 
His portrait of morality, however, is less allegorical and more strongly grounded in documentary. The pulse of Hormuz sets the pace of the action: noise and silence, lights and shadows, nature and the streets of the rugged island in the Persian Gulf all give the chain of events and their erratic rhythms a concretely localized, singular ambience. The agile and intuitive camera work, which usually remains at eye level with the precocious protagonist, also provides grounding –except when it drifts off into episodes of dramatic suspense. (Andrey Arnold)

Translation: John Wojtowicz

Orig. Title
Looteyo
Year
2022
Countries
Austria, Iran
Duration
83 min
Director
Ashkan Nematian
Category
feature fiction
Orig. Language
persian, Farsi
Subtitles
English
Downloads
Filmstill (Image)
Credits
Director
Ashkan Nematian
Script
Ashkan Nematian
Cinematography
Ashkan Nematian
Editing
Hayedeh Safiyari
Sound
Ensieh Maleki
Line Producer
Parisa Ghasemi
Actor/Actress
Mansour Daryanavard, Saeed Zarei, Atena Nematian, Zahra Iranmanesh, Maryam Kian, Kian Daryanavard
Executive Producer
Ashkan Nematian, Hadi Alimohammadi
Available Formats
DCP 2K flat (Distribution Copy)
Aspect Ratio
16:9
Sound Format
5.1 surround
Frame Rate
24 fps
Color Format
colour
Festivals (Selection)
2022
Wien - this human world International Human Rights Film Festival
Linz - Crossing Europe Film Festival