Dramas that center around rebellious and alienated teenage girls are not a staple of Iranian cinema, which makes The Girl in the Sneakers all the more intriguing for its rare glimpse of the life of a runaway, said to be based on a true story. The girl of the title, winningly played by Pegah Ahangarani, is normal, curious, and interested in boys. In an exceptionally daring move, she runs away from home when her middle-class Tehran parents attempt to squelch her growing friendship with a boy she meets in the park. Director Ameli depicts her odyssey through Tehran, from chic shops and apartments to a sleazy squatters' camp, with even-handed realism and an occasional touch of sensational flavor. The sequence in which the girl's dream of independence dead-ends in a police station, where the price of nonconformity is graphically brought home to her, is the stuff of teen nightmares. The film was a prize winner at this year's Berlin Film Festival.-Barbara Scharres