Product Description

Triumph prize winner at many prestigious film festivals, this uplifting, crowd-pleasing story of family and love was also moniated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film! When Ali loses his sister Zahra's school shoes, this young pair dream up a plan to stay out of trouble: they'll share his shoes and keep it a secret from their parents! But if they're going to successfuly cover their tracks, Ali and Zahra must carefully watch their step on what rapidly turns into a funny and heartwarming adventure! A magical motion picture acclaimed by critics and audiences alike, Children Of Heaven is a charming treat you'll love, too!

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #21759 in DVD
• Brand: Buena Vista Home Video
• Released on: 2012-01-06
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: NTSC
• Original language: Farsi, French, English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .24 pounds
• Running time: 1 minutes

Amazon.com
Majid Majidi celebrates the immediacy and essence of childhood in this delightful tale of a brother and sister who share a pair of shoes when the boy (though no fault of his own) loses his sister's only pair. Since their parents are too poor to afford a new pair, they keep it a secret, trading them off every day in a mad rush, jumping gutters and navigating the twisting lanes to their schools and back. Then the boy hatches a plan: the third-place prize in a student footrace is a new pair of shoes, and he's determined to take it. The plot may smack of a Disney film, but the direction couldn't be more different. The family scenes are delicately observed, and Majidi captures the spirit of the children perfectly: proud, emotional, petulant, sweet, and disarmingly sincere. The film has a Western-friendly framework without losing the naturalistic eye and lolling rhythm that gives the best Iranian films their richness. Even as he builds to the climactic footrace (quite unexpectedly turned into a nail-biting contest) the film continues to reveal a wealth of discreet surprises, culminating in a conclusion all the more resonant for its sublime delicacy. His efforts earned the film the honor of becoming the first Iranian feature to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. --Sean Axmaker

From The New Yorker
Children of Heaven-An Iranian boy, Ali (Amir Farrokh Hashemian), loses a pair of pink shoes in the streets of Teheran. The shoes belong to his younger sister, Zahra (Bahare Sediqi), who, because their family is poor, has no hope of getting replacements. For a while, the children share a single pair of sneakers; finally, Ali enters a long-distance footrace in an attempt to win another pair (by coming in third). At this point, Majid Majidi's slight and careful film veers into the hokey-the sight of Ali stumbling in slow motion across the finish line is pure Hollywood, and old-fashioned Hollywood at that. Whenever the action flags, Majidi tends to get out of trouble with a closeup of Ali's tear-smeared face. Still, the movie toughens up as it moves outward from its tender hero to the world beyond. When Ali and his father take a bicycle trip from their poor district to the whitened gleam of the suburbs, they might as well be heading for Mars. In Farsi. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker