World Focus · 2027

World Focus 2027: Iran

Few countries have shaped children’s cinema as an art form the way Iran has. World Focus 2027 traces that history — from a state-supported children’s film institute in the 1960s to the humanist, child’s-eye style that went on to win prizes at Cannes and a place at the Academy Awards.

What is World Focus?

Each year World Focus turns the spotlight on one country and its history of films for children, with a curated selection of classic and new films, a short history, and special screenings. World Focus is a celebration, not a competition.

2027 · Iran

Iranian children’s cinema grew up alongside a single institution: Kanoon, founded in 1965 to make books, animation and films for young people. Its film unit became an unlikely training ground for some of the most influential directors in world cinema, because it asked them to do something simple and exacting — make a film a child would actually watch, on a child's own terms.

That discipline produced a style: long patient takes, non-professional child actors, and stories told at a child's eye level rather than looking down at one. Abbas Kiarostami's Kanoon shorts led to "Where Is the Friend's House?" (1987), where an entire film turns on a boy trying to return a notebook before his friend gets in trouble — no adult drama layered on top, just a child's sense of duty taken completely seriously.

That seriousness carried the films past Iran's borders. Jafar Panahi's "The White Balloon" (1995) won the Camera d'Or at Cannes; Majid Majidi's "Children of Heaven" (1997) became the first Iranian film nominated for an Academy Award. Neither film talks down to its audience, and neither needed to — the emotional stakes of a lost fish or a missing pair of shoes carried the whole story.

We're bringing more of this history to the page over time, with real film data, stills and context — this is a starting point, not the finished picture.

Un bref historique

1965Kanoon — the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults — is founded, and soon builds a film unit that will train generations of Iranian directors.

1970s–80sA young Abbas Kiarostami directs a run of shorts and features for Kanoon, developing the patient, child’s-eye realism that becomes Iranian cinema’s signature.

1987Kiarostami’s "Where Is the Friend’s House?" — a boy’s search across two villages to return a classmate’s notebook — becomes a landmark of humanist children’s filmmaking.

1995Jafar Panahi’s "The White Balloon," about a girl chasing a lost banknote before Nowruz, wins the Camera d’Or at Cannes.

1997Majid Majidi’s "Children of Heaven" becomes the first Iranian film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

2000s–2020sA new generation of Iranian filmmakers keeps the tradition going, and festivals worldwide — including CKFF — continue to program Iranian family and children’s films.

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21 sept. 2026