Children of Heaven

Cast:
Amir Farrokh Hashemian (Ali) , Bahare Seddiqi (Zahra)


Director : Majid Majidi
Year :1997
imdb score : 8/10


Plot:
In this simple, yet endearing story, two children invent an intricate plan to conceal the loss of a pair of shoes. It's the story of Ali and Zahra, brother and sister who belong to a poor family living in Iran. Ali loses his sister's shoes through no fault of his own. Afraid of their parents anger, they decide to keep it a secret and share the only pair of worn-out sneakers belonging to Ali. They devise a scheme to share Ali’s sneakers: Zahra will wear them to school in the morning and hand them off to Ali at midday so he can attend afternoon classes. This uncomfortable arrangement leads to one adventure after another as they attempt to hide the plan from their parents and teachers, attend to their schoolwork and errands, and acquire a new pair of shoes for Zahra. Zahra sees the shoes on a schoolmate’s feet, and follows her home, but the two soon become friends.





Ali enters a high-profile children’s footrace in hopes of receiving the third prize of a new pair of sneakers. He accidentally places first and wins another prize instead. The film ends with Zahra finding out that she will not get a new pair of shoes, but an epilogue explains that Ali eventually achieves the larger-scale success of having a racing career. However a quick shot of their father’s bicycle at the end of the movie shows what appears to be the pink shoes Zahra had been focusing on earlier, implying she got the shoes after all.

Awards:

In 1998, the film was the first Iranian film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but lost to the Italian film Life Is Beautiful by Roberto Benigni.
It was successfully shown on numerous film festivals and won awards at the Fajr Film Festival, the World Film Festival, the Newport International Film Festival, the Warsaw International Film Festival, and the Singapore International Film Festival. It was nominated for the Jury's Grand Prize at the American Film Institute's festival.