Children of Heaven
| Children of Heaven | |
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US release poster
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| Directed by | Majid Majidi |
| Produced by |
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| Written by | Majid Majidi |
| Starring |
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| Music by | Keivan Jahanshahi |
| Cinematography | Parviz Malekzaade |
| Edited by | Hassan Hassandoost |
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Production
company |
The Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children & Young Adults
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| Distributed by | Miramax Films |
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Release date
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Running time
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89 minutes |
| Country | Iran |
| Language | Persian |
| Budget | US$180,000 |
| Box office | US$1.6 million |
Children of Heaven (Persian: بچههای آسمان Bačče-hâ-ye âsemân) is a 1997 Iranian family drama film written and directed by Majid Majidi. It deals with a brother and sister and their adventures over a lost pair of shoes. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998.
The film starts with Ali fetching his little sister Zahra's pink shoes after a cobbler has repaired them. He leaves them unattended to buy some potatoes. While he is pre-occupied, a homeless man picks up the shoes, hidden in a bag, thinking it was garbage and takes them away. Frantic to find them, the young boy thinking the shoes fell behind the crates knocks over plates of vegetables and is chased away by the grocer.
Ali's family lives in a poor South Tehran neighbourhood, and are having financial trouble, so he fears to tell his parents about the mishap. The landlord argues with Ali's mother because she is five months behind on the rent, and the grocer has not been paid in a while either. Ali tells Zahra about the shoes and begs her not to tell their mother; she agrees. That night, Ali's father scolds him for not helping his ill mother when she asked. While the siblings were doing their homework, they passed notes to each other discussing what to do. They devise a scheme to share Ali's Converse sneakers: Zahra will wear them to school in the morning and return them to Ali at midday so he can attend afternoon classes. Ali does well on a test and his teacher awards him a gold-colored pen with the others in his class that got good grades; he gives it to Zahra to partially make up for losing her shoes. However, the uncomfortable arrangement between him and his sister leads to Ali being late three times in a row, no matter how hard he runs; the first time the principal ignores him, the second time he gives him a warning, the third time he tells Ali to leave and return with his father who is at work trying to make money. Ali's teacher noticing Ali's tears persuades the principal that Ali is at the top of his class and to give the boy one more chance and let him back into class.
One day, Zahra notices her missing pink shoes on another student, Roya's, feet. After class, Zahra secretly follows Roya home. She later brings Ali with her for a confrontation, but from hiding, they discover that Roya's father, the garbageman, is blind, so they decide to leave. When Roya does well in her studies, her father buys her new blue shoes and throws away Zahra's. Zahra is dismayed when she finds out from her new friend.
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