Love Child

On a cold winter’s day a plane arrives in Istanbul. The four-year-old Iranian boy Mani and his parents are on board. At first glance, everything seems normal, but the little boy doesn’t know that the journey is an escape, that the three of them can never return to Iran and that the ‘uncle’ he is travelling with is really his biological father. Mani is the offspring of a secret love affair between a married woman and a married man. They could never live together in Iran, so they fled their country. Now they seek asylum for themselves and for their love, at first in a UN office in Turkey, but the hope is to move on to a safe place in the West, somewhere they can build a life together. When the little family makes it to Turkey, they arrive amidst a wave of refugees from the wars and crisis of our time. At first, Leila and Sahand, the parents, are optimistic, but the wait stretches on, and the bureaucratic system of the UN poses many unexpected challenges. A constant threat hangs over their heads: if the asylum application is rejected, they could be forced to go back to Iran, where they would be cast out – or worse, sentenced to death, Leila could be facing to be stoned to death, for their forbidden love, and Mani would be shamed as a ‘bastard’. The family’s escape becomes the start of a protracted struggle to stay together, to get away from the ghosts of the past and to secure a stable future for their little child. 'Love Child' is an intimate love story, which plays out against a backdrop of the dramatic political events of our time.