Iran's Oscar-hopeful director wins home film award
February 10, 1999, TEHRAN, Iran (Reuters) -- A film by Majid Majidi,
the man who directed the first Iranian film to be nominated for an Oscar,
has won the top prize at Iran's premier film festival, newspapers reported
Wednesday.
"The Color of God," the story of a blind boy's difficult relationship
with his father, won the prize as the best film in Tehran international
Fajr film festival's competition section on Tuesday, the newspapers said.
On the same day in Los Angeles, Majidi's "Children of Heaven,"
a poignant story about a poor brother and sister who have to share the
same pair of shoes, was nominated for an Oscar for the best foreign film.
The Academy Awards will be given out on March 21.
Despite good reviews, "Children of Heaven" has not been a
great box-office success in Iran.
"It is a highly emotive and sentimental film. Many audiences perhaps
also had problems with it because such extreme cases of poverty are rare
in Iran," film critic Jamshid Arjmand said.
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