Be Calm and Count to Seven

‘The colour of the sea when you stand by it is sometimes blue, sometimes green, but there is another colour too: the one that can be seen only by those who are lost at sea. But they never return to say what colour the raging sea is.’ These opening words set the atmosphere of this lyrical first feature film by Ramtin Lavafipour.
Motu (Omid Abdollahi) is a teenage boy living in a remote fishing village somewhere in southern Iran. As there are no more fish in the sea, the whole village lives from smuggling goods – and sometimes people too. Every now and again, big mysterious packages jump out of the sea and are hidden by the locals before being smuggled further.
Motu’s father left the village a few days ago but there is no message from him yet. Motu earns money and takes care of his mother and sister in anticipation of his father’s return. He spends a lot of time playing football and dreams of becoming as rich and as famous as Ronaldhino. He also becomes friendly with the smugglers’ middleman (Heydayat Hashemi), to whom he proposes doing serious business when his father has still not come back…
The film is in the style of documentary realism, with dynamic camera work and beautiful atmospheres. It is a sensitive reflection of the changes in a small fishing village as it moves from a traditional way of life towards today’s fast consumer society.