Amiru is an orphan, lives in an abandoned barge on the Persian Gulf and does all kinds of odd jobs - he dives for bottles, shines shoes and sells water. But his favorite job is running errands. Jobs where he has to run, criss-cross the city and work himself to the bone. But he doesn't need financial incentives to set off: Because Amiru runs even when it's for nothing, just to feel how free he is ...
A movie about fire and ice. In the background, the flames of the oil refineries blaze repeatedly; at the climax, a fire burns in a tin drum in the foreground, behind which Amiru can be seen running towards it with a block of ice in his arms. This scene has made film history; it stands for an entire era of Iranian cinema and its worldwide reception. This episode from The Runner (which came quite early in a first cut and was not the final climax in which all of the film's energy flows are discharged) will certainly not be forgotten by anyone who has ever seen this work. When extremes collide: This is Amir Naderi. But he is also, and this should not be overlooked: the cartographer of his cities, documentarist of their everyday life, ethnologist of the streets and alleyways, their inhabitants, their rituals and (survival) strategies.
