World Focus 2027: Iran

Every year, World Focus turns the spotlight on one country's history of films for children. For our 2027 edition, that country is Iran.

Few countries have shaped children's cinema as an art form the way Iran has. 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.

At the festival, World Focus: Iran will bring classics and new films, plus talks about this tradition. World Focus is a celebration, not a competition - these films are not in competition for awards.

Read the World Focus page and the short history of Iranian children's cinema. The full program will be announced with the 2027 lineup.