Mehrdad Oskouei’s concise documentary Starless Dreams is an exploration of intergenerational poverty, addiction, and abuse told through the stories of young women incarcerated in a juvenile detention and rehabilitation facility outside of Tehran. Interviews make up the bulk of the film, including questions from the off-screen documentarian as well as a memorably playful mock interview that the girls conduct themselves.
The best thing that the film does is demonstrate the unquenchable will to survive that landed these young people in a locked detention center. For many of the subjects of the documentary, a life on the streets was their only option, and they grabbed power however they possibly could (drugs, weapons, threats of violence) so that they had a chance to make it through another day.