Children of Heaven
- Amir Farrokh Hashemian Ali
- Bahare Seddiqi: Zahra
- Mohammad Amir Naji: Ali and Zahra's father
- Nafise Jafar - Mohammadi: Roya
- Fereshte Sarabandi: Ali and Zahra's mother
Children of Heaven (Persian بچههای آسمان Bacheha - Ye Aseman ) is an Iranian film made in 1997. Majid Majidi has directed and wrote the screenplay for the children's film. The Amir Farrokh Hashemian, starring and Bahare Seddiqi.
Action
The nine- year-old, living in Tehran Ali to pick up his sister, the new shoes from the cobbler and additional shopping. When shopping, it lets the new shoes, however, are by mistake and no longer finds it when he discovers his mishap. Because he and his sister Zahra only each have a pair of shoes and Ali did not want to report the loss of the new shoes his parents, as the family is very poor, the two siblings have to share Ali's shoes.
Zahra has the morning school, Ali afternoon. Since shoes are mandatory in school, Zahra has to run home every night, so that Ali can still be on time to class. But because of the way home for Zahra, a smaller shoe size than her brother, is cumbersome, Ali often comes late to school and is repeatedly admonished by the Director.
Ali learns that the third prize is a pair of sneakers in a long-distance running for students. He wants to participate, but will not initially selected for the competition. Finally, he can convince his sports teacher of his services which he has acquired by daily walking to school.
In 5- km race around a lake, Ali tries to run to third place, but is first and gets a different price. Ali and Zahra are disappointed. However, her father, who knows nothing of the competition, bought on the same day new shoes for them.
Background
The film was shot in Tehran. They tried to keep as top secret that making a film in order to capture a more realistic image of the city. It is estimated that production costs amounted to $ 180,000.
His debut children of the sky in February 1997 at the International Fajr Film Festival in Tehran and has been awarded several national film awards. The film opened on 22 January 1999 in the American cinema, where he played a total of 930,000 U.S. dollars. After the film was acquired by the Oscar nomination notoriety, he was seen between 1999 and 2001 in several European, South American and Asian countries. In Germany the film was released on 9 September 1999 in the cinemas and was seen 21 473 times. In March 2000, the film was released in Germany on video.
Critics took the film very well. He was partially Vittorio de Sica's Bicycle compared with thieves from the year 1948. The few negative voices criticized, the film could be some questions open and is easy to knit.
Reviews
Dirk Jaspers Filmlexikon described the film as " touching, exciting, with fantastic little actors and without didactic finger ". Children of Heaven was " to discover an invitation to good children's movie a strange world ."
The American film critic Roger Ebert said in the Chicago Sun - Times, The Children of Heaven was a " really almost perfect children's film ." He wrote that the film is different from American children's films because he lacked cynicism and he for distinguishing himself by warm-hearted purity.
Awards
The film was nominated in 1999 as the first Iranian film for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but had the tragicomedy Life is beautifully hand the Italian Roberto Benigni beaten.
Children of Heaven was successfully shown at numerous film festivals and won in addition to the main prize at the Fajr Film Festival Awards at the World Film Festival, the Newport International Film Festival, the Warsaw Film Festival and the Singapore International Film Festival. At the Festival of American Film Institute the film for the Grand Jury Prize was nominated.
Remake
Published in 2003, the Singaporean filmmaker Jack Neo, who with his film Xiaohai bu ben in Hong Kong and Singapore had been a commercial success in the previous year, a remake of Children of Heaven entitled Pao ba hai zi (跑吧 孩子), with Shawn Lee and Megan Zheng in the lead roles. The action was thereby transferred to the Singapore of the 60s.