Syrian refugee boy stand-out star of Cannes film festival

A 13-year-old Syrian refugee boy became the star of the Cannes film festival Friday for his breathtaking performance in a Lebanese film many see as the likely winner of the Palme d'Or top prize.

Zain Al Rafeea, who has been working as a delivery boy in Beirut until recently -- and who has only just learned to write his name -- turns in a performance in "Capernaum" that critics said would melt the hardest of hearts.

"I and the total stranger sitting next to me were sniffling and sharing a packet of tissues" by the end, said the Hollywood Reporter's Leslie Felperin.

And young Zain -- who is small for his age -- endeared himself still further by falling asleep at the press conference Friday afternoon, having stayed up late for the gala premiere the night before.

He said he now wants to be an actor and had been "spoiled" by the crew on the shoot.

Director Nadine Labaki took six months to make the odyssey through lives of the poorest of the poor in the slums of the Lebanese capital using amateur actors.

Zain plays a boy of the same name who runs away from home after his desperate mother and father sell his 11-year-old sister into marriage for a few chickens. Zain then takes his parents to court for having brought him into the world.
Labaki discovered the girl who plays his sister, Cedra Izam, selling chewing gum in the streets.
"It became an obsession for me... I did more than three years of research. I was trying to understand how the system fails these kids," Labaki said.

"These kids are facing extreme neglect. A lot of the things I saw shocked me, children who were incredibly neglected, and I went into children's prisons.

"You feel completely powerless. And that's maybe why we turn away," she said, best-known for her far less gritty beauty parlour story, "Caramel".