2. Discuss the setting. What image do we get of present-day Tehran? What do we learn about life there?

3. Like many films from Third World countries, The Children of Heaven is a child of the film movement in the Forties known as Italian Neorealism (e.g., The Bicycle Thief). Neorealist films were designed to be antidotes to movie escapism. Instead of glossy sets and fancy costumes, they are characterized by working-class settings, a frequent use of non-professional secondary actors, relatively simple stories and straightforward camera technique, and an underlying belief in humanity. How does this film fit with that movement?

4. Young Ali is the film's central character, and the film operates very much within the tradition of the "rite of passage" or "coming of age" film. Discuss Ali. What motivates him? What choices does he make? What does he come to learn over the course of the film?

5. How about his sister, Zahra? What is she like? Discuss her relationship with her brother.

6. Now discuss Ali's parents. What are they like? What is the image of family life that we get from the film

7. The film is full of little dilemmas, near calamaties for Ali and Zahra, which generally work out. Discuss some of them. How do things work out and why?

9. What role does the blind man and his family play in the film? How does their situation parallel Ali's family's?

10. Discuss the scene in which Ali and his father go to the affluent neighborhood for work. What do we learn from that part of the film?