A little secret ... their biggest adventure!

Islamabad
Director-Script: Majid Majidi
Camera: Perraiz Malekzaade
Cast: Amir Hashemian, Bahare Seddiqi
The Lok Virsa Film Club Mandwa will screen Iranian film ‘Children of Heaven’ from 1997, directed by Majid Majidi (‘Colour of Paradise’, ‘Baraan’ and now ‘Muhammad-The Messenger of God’), on September 5 at 6 p.m.
‘Children of Heaven’ has become one of the most distinguished films from Iran on the international scene during last 18 years. It has won numerous international awards and citations around the world, particularly in the children's section of various reputable international film festivals. It was nominated for an Oscar as the Best Foreign Film and won top award at Montreal World Film Festival.
The film revolves around two cute but vulnerable children (brother and sister) from a poor family with a sick mother and an unemployed father. This is a world where children shoulder household responsibility and duties. Not only would they go to school, do their homework, but also help their mother with family's exhausted resources (I am not going to leak out the secret the kids share with no fault of the brother).
Majid Majidi handles the subject cleverly in a highly cinematic way. The poverty of the family is juxtaposed with a rich neighbourhood where the son and father are looking for a part-time job. The sequences also bring out the loneliness of child in this neighbourhood who has everything and yet nothing. This is followed by a race, which works well for the photo finish climax.
The film is warm, simple and charming with its own kind of lyricism. Majid Majidi does not go for theatrical techniques and gimmicks with children as cute models. Here the children are real with faults and innocence and they are seen as serious characters. Adults appear only in minor and supporting roles. This is the world of children -- their pains and their pleasures.
The film has been mostly lensed at locations in narrow streets of the neighbourhood, dingy vegetable shops and schools. The filming was a secret to capture a realistic image. Budgeted at $180,000, the film earned millions. With crisp camerawork, good lighting and real ambiance, it becomes a film not to be missed by both children and adults. It runs for 88 minutes. The film was remade in Singapore as 'I not Stupid' (2002) and in India as 'Bumm Bumm Bole' (2010).
This is a film with dreams and problems. A critic called it "very nearly perfect movie for children that lacks the cynicism and smart-mouth attitude of so much American entertainment for kids and glows with kind of good-hearted purity".
The author can be reached at aijazzgul@gmail.com