Winner, Jury Grand Prize, 2007
Night Bus, a black-and-white war drama, travels back to the Iran-Iraq conflict of the mid-1980’s, when a young private is forced to transport 38 Iraqi prisoners-of-war to their home base in a half dilapidated bus.
The obstinate and slightly irascible driver must pilot the vehicle through a dangerous lay of land, packed with mortar shells and explosive mines. Uninterested with wartime heroics, the film denounces the senselessness of the conflict, which pitted ordinary men from two closely related nations against each other at the behest of fanatical leaders.