[caption id="attachment_129641" align="alignright" width="155"] A scene from 'The Pearl' directed by Sirous Hassanpour[/caption]
Iranian filmmaker Sirous Hassanpours screen creation The Pearl has garneredan award at the 21st Minsk International Film Festival in Belarus.
The film took the Award for Best Film for Children at the 2014 Minsk International Film Festival, Listapad.
The Pearl competed with seven other films at the festival, which runs from November 7 to 14.
The film chronicles the life of a pearl hunter, Karim, who is living in a little town in southern Iranian.
Karim who suffers from heart trouble, finds out that he needs an urgent surgery for theconditionbut he cannot afford it. His two children think that they have to grow up sooner than the expected time to help their dad.
The movie has been screened at several international festivals and won an award at the 2014 edition of Bucharest International Film Festival, Romania.
Produced by Irans Farabi Cinematic Foundation, The Pearl also competed at the 2013 Damah Film Festival that took place in the Japanese city of Hiroshima.
The movie won the UNICEF award at the 2012 International Film Festival for Children and Young Adults in Isfahan.
According to the UNICEF report on the film, The Pearl "provides a realistic perspective of child labor and reflects situations where children are forced to distance themselves from their childhood.
The report also says that the film portrays the finer aspects of human relationships and moral values with beautiful cinematic skills.
Iranian childrens director Hassanpour is planning to produce a film adapted from the atomic attack on Japans Hiroshima and chemical attack on Irans Sardasht.
The films plot is based on Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, a non-fiction childrens book written by the American author Eleanor Coerr andpublished in 1977.