The Lowland

Cinematographer: Aidin Halalzadeh, Sepideh Salarvand

Screenwriter: Sepideh Salarvand

Producer: Bahman Kiarostami and Aidin Halalzadeh

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Editor: Bahman Kiarostami

Sound Design: Mahoor Mirshakkak

Music: Mahshid Afzali

Lowland is an intimate portrait of a community of undocumented migrant Afghan children, living and working as garbage collectors in the margins of Tehran. Over the course of five years, the two filmmakers, Sepideh and Aidin, documented their encounters with the children first as ethnographers and volunteer teachers, and later as filmmakers. The film is an assemblage of personal everyday stories and gestures shared by the children of the Lowland as powerful individuals rather than mere child workers.

Aidin Halalzadeh
Aidin Halalzadeh (b. 1989) lives and works as an editor and color correction assistant in a film studio in Tehran.

Aidin Halalzadeh

Aidin Halalzadeh (b. 1989) lives and works as an editor and color correction assistant in a film studio in Tehran.

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Sepideh Salarvand

Sepideh Salarvand (b. 1991) lives and works in Tehran, Iran. She received her BA in Social Sciences from Tehran University. Her book, "I Could Not Speak," published in 2022, is a collection of essays based on her Master’s Thesis “An ethnography of Afghan child laborers in Tehran."

More about Sepideh Salarvand