Documentary ‘Rebin and the Storks’ enters Amsterdam festival lineup
The documentary ‘Rebin and the Storks,’ directed by Nourollah Fattahi and produced by Mohammad Javad Amirani with oversight from Al Jazeera Documentary, has been selected for the official competition of the Amsterdam Kurdish Film Festival (AKFF).
The festival, scheduled for May 8–10 in the Dutch capital, will host the film’s world premiere, marking its first screening before an international audience, according to ILNA.
Set in the mountainous villages of western Iran, the documentary traces a recurring seasonal ritual in which villagers build nests for migrating storks as winter approaches and the birds return each year to settle in the region’s rural landscape.
At the center of the story is Rebin, a village schoolboy whose deep attachment to animals collides with local belief and tradition. After failing last year to save a stork chick that fell from its nest, he once again becomes fixated on the fragile line between survival and loss as the migration cycle resumes.
The film unfolds as a lyrical study of coexistence between humans and wildlife, weaving together themes of compassion, instinct, and inherited custom. It raises an unspoken tension between intervention and restraint, asking whether rescuing a living creature disrupts nature’s order or fulfills a human duty embedded within it.