The Colour of Paradise is another milestone in Iranian cinema's impressive tradition of films dealing with children. Vibrant cinematography and natural performances ensure a festival highlight. It is summer vacation and Mohammad, an eight-year-old blind boy returns, with his widowed father, to their home in the northern highlands of Iran. Together with his two sisters, Mohammad roams the farm, amidst expansive fields, picking wild flowers to make dyes for brightly coloured yarn. His father, however, is keen to remarry and sees Mohammad as a burden. He plans to remove the boy from this seemingly idyllic location.

Winner of the Best Film at the Montreal Film Festival in 1999, Majid Majidi's new film is sure to be as popular as his previous effort, Children of Heaven (MIFF 1999), a Best Foreign language picture Oscar nominee. The Colour of Paradise paints an absorbing portrait of rural life with all its joys, traditions and hardships.