The Runner

OCOpen Caption screening
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Poster for THE RUNNER

The Runner

Pre-Recorded Q&A with Actor Madjid Niroumand

Childhood takes on mythic dimensions in one of the defining works of postrevolutionary Iranian cinema. Inspired by director Amir Naderi’s own boyhood, The Runner is lit from within by Madjid Niroumand’s electrifying performance as a young orphan fending for himself on the streets of a port city, determined to rise above his circumstances—working odd jobs, passing time with friends, learning to read—and running, always running, toward the future. Water, fire, the human body in motion: in hypnotic images of lyrical power, Naderi finds unexpected glory in the world of a boy suspended between modernity and elemental natural forces as he chases his own path forward.

Restored from the original negative in 2K by Cineric.

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Pre-Recorded Q&A with actor Madjid Niroumand
Friday, May. 17 2024, 1:00
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  • Madjid Niroumand, who plays the central role of the resourceful young street kid Amiro in The Runner, was accidentally discovered by director Amir Naderi when he spotted the boy on the front cover of a sports magazine, in a group photo of a winning track and field team. But it was 11-year-old Madjid who jumped off the cover. The Los Angeles Times called Niroumand’s work in The Runner, “the greatest performance ever given by a child.” A year after The Runner, Niroumand played the lead in Naderi’s Water, Wind, Dust. Prior to leaving Iran in 1987 at age 16, Madjid did voiceovers for a number of Iranian movies and TV series. In 2016, Niroumand’s harrowing account of his escape from his native country was told in the documentary A Boy’s Own Story, a film by Mojtaba Bakhtiari Azad. Now a resident of Southern California, Niroumand serves as the Vice President of Student Affairs at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, California.
 



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