Children of Heaven

A young boy in Tehran picks up his sister’s pink shoes from the cobbler and then loses them while running other errands in this gentle, languid drama. The siblings devise a plan to keep their money-strapped parents from discovering the loss by sharing a lone pair of sneakers that they each must wear to school. Writer-director Majid Majidi turns a simple story of sibling unity and resourcefulness into an emotionally rich fable. His provocative look at Iran as filtered through children’s eyes ends with a suspenseful foot race that also further embellishes the film’s poetic power.