Written and Directed by Arash Sedighi
Holding onto home
(2024) 13 minutes
A young refugee boy tries to adjust to life in a new school and a new country while holding on to memories of home.
Drama
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Arash Sedighi
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Sam Abbasi as Ehsan
Samaneh Valizadeh as Mother
Amir Rizwan as Father
Matt Whitchurch as Teacher
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Derkan Dogan
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Robin Webster
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Ehsan Bhayat
Sam Ostrove
Nicola Han
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Sam Ostrove
40% of people seeking asylym in the UK are children
In 1986, my mother (pregnant with my little brother), my father and I were smuggled out of Iran with two suitcases.
I remember my childhood as a comfortable one, but looking back, I know it must have been a difficult transition for my parents. My father worked as a cook in a nursery, as a taxi driver, and finally as a qualified social worker. My parents worked hard to make my younger brother and I feel like we belonged.
When my father found out that I played with marbles at school, he gave me a bag of his own, that he had brought with him all the way from Iran. He told me they were marbles he used to play with back in Iran when he was a young boy. It was the only possession he had from his childhood. The next day, I went to school with my father’s marbles and lost them in a game.
