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.

Director(s): Aidin Halalzadeh & Sepideh Salarvand | 2021 | 52 Min.
Language: Farsi/Dari with English subtitles
Country: Iran

Screenings and tickets

Monday 9 June 2025, 17:00

Saturday 7 June 2025, 19:00

Directors

Aidin Halalzadeh (b. 1990, Tehran) is a post-production specialist and color correction assistant based in Tehran. He works at a local film studio and has co-directed the documentary The Lowland, focusing on child labor in Iran.

Sepideh Salarvand (b. 1991, Tehran) is a researcher, writer, and documentary filmmaker. She holds an MA in Cultural Studies and is the author of I Could Not Speak (2020), based on her ethnographic work with Afghan child laborers in Tehran. She co-directed the documentary The Lowland and currently manages an NGO while researching representations of working children in Persian literature.