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Children of Heaven (1997) More at IMDbPro »Bacheha-Ye aseman (original title)

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18 May 2013 8:30 AM, PDT | EW - Inside Movies | See recent EW.com - Inside Movies news »

If you had gone to see every single one of the acclaimed movies from Iran that have played in the U.S. since the mid-’90s — the lyrically subdued Abbas Kiarostami films, like Through the Olive Trees and Taste of Cherry, that were hailed at the time as minimalist masterpieces; the feminist political parable The Circle; scrappy fables like The White Balloon, Children of Heaven, and A Time for Drunken Horses; the enchantingly colorful woven rug of a movie Gabbeh — it would be perfectly reasonable for you to come away from that experience thinking that Iran is a land of »

- Owen Gleiberman

15 March 2013 4:49 AM, PDT | The Guardian - Film News | See recent The Guardian - Film News news »

Duelling biopics of Muhammad reflect differing traditions of Sunni and Shia Islam over depiction of the Muslim prophet

Film-makers in Iran and Qatar are planning rival biopics about the life of Muslim prophet Muhammad, according to the Hollywood Reporter, despite the risk of offending religious sensibilities that such plans inevitably throw up.

Oil-rich Qatar recently announced a series of epics designed for a worldwide audience about the seventh-century prophet of Islam. Production company Alnoor Holdings has hired Lord of the Rings producer Barrie Osborne and Sunni Islam scholar and al-Jazeera broadcaster Yusuf al-Qaradawi to provide advice on what could be a $1bn project. "They certainly have the money to do it," Osborne told the Hollywood Reporter, adding: "They are being understandably very cautious."

Meanwhile, Iranian director Majid Majidi (The Song of Sparrows, Children of Heaven) began shooting a rival $30m Muhammad film in October. In keeping with Shiite-dominated Iran's more »

- Ben Child

2 items from 2013