Children of Heaven

(Persian: بچه‌های آسمان) A 1997 Iranian film, it was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998. It deals with a brother and sister and their adventures over a lost pair of shoes, while also touching upon the more serious subject of the political situation in Iran as well as class differences between the rich and the poor and daily urban life.

Ali takes his little sister Zahra's shoes to the shoemaker to be repaired, but loses them on the way home. The siblings decide to keep the predicament a secret from their parents, knowing that there is no money to buy a replacement pair and fearing that they will be punished. 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.

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.

A Scene From The Film