The Color of Paradise

Director Majid Majidi , whose Bacheha-Ye Aseman / Children Of Heaven was the first Iranian film to be nominated for an American Academy Award, returns with another compassionate story of children in need. Mohammad ( Moshen Ramezani ) is a student at a special school for blind children in Tehran; when summer break rolls around, Mohammad is the last student to be picked up by his family. His mother is dead, and his father ( Hossein Mahjub ), who earns a meagre wage working in a charcoal producing plant, sometimes considers abandoning the boy. However, father does eventually arrive, and Mohammad spends the summer with his sisters and grandmother at a farm surrounding by dazzling fields of wild flowers. The summer in the country is a joyous experience for Mohammad, until he discovers his father is giving thoughts to re-marrying, and considers his handicapped son to be a stumbling block in his future matrimonial plans. — Mark Deming