Rona, Madar-e Azim
The Afghan refugee Azim lives with his family in Teheran and works as a street sweeper at night. As the oldest brother he organizes an escape to Germany for his younger brother Faroogh and his family using a human trafficker, a smuggler. At the very last moment, however, an embarrassed Faroogh tells his brother of his decision to not send their mother, who is very attached to her grandchildren, with them. (...) Later Azim will learn that his mother is a diabetic and needs a donor kidney badly, otherwise she has only two more months to live. In his search for a donor Azim learns that it is against the law for Iranians to donate their organs to foreigners. And that makes him the only possible donor, even though his doctor strongly advises him against it. Now he, who himself cannot have any children as we learn, has to choose between his own life and his mother’s life … (Festival information, IFF Mannheim-Heidelberg 2019)
In the city’s metabolism, work in the essential sewer system provides a basic lively hood for Afghani Azim and his family in Iran. Azim’s capacity to bear suffering seems boundless. What finally breaks his strength and resolve, as well as his set of values, is the collapse of his mother’s metabolism, a life-threatening failure that can only be treated with a kidney transplant by donation. Traditions and laws, conscience and the need to survive, love of one’s mother, feeding the family, living without rights but with a sense of duty, flight, patriarchal decision making, nationalism and religion collide with Iranian theocracy. The right to pursue life and survival is nonetheless sacrosanct. The film moves us because Azim is amongst us, in our society, within each of us. How do you live with death, when does life end, how far are you willing to go for what and who is holy to you? The path to the end of life can only be taken, when we hold on to one another in love and let each other go in love.