Iranian director Majid Majidi's films: The Color of Paradise, Beyond the Clouds and Children of Heaven. [Photo provided to China Daily]

He says he set up a "trap" for Amir Farrokh Hashemian, who stars as 8-year-old Ali in the same film, and Bahare Seddiqi, the actress who plays Ali's younger sister, Zahra.

In the film, which also won the best picture award at the Montreal World Film Festival in 1997, Ali is from a poverty-stricken family in Tehran. One day, he loses a pair of pink shoes-his sister's only footwear. Fearing that their father would blame him, the siblings decide to take turns wearing Ali's pair of sneakers to go to school. But a string of mishaps makes the situation worse.

It was the first film for the two child actors, Hashemian and Seddiqi, who were selected from a number of elementary school students in Tehran.

They had to show anger, joy and desperation, among other emotions.

"But the children would be nervous in front of a camera. It's natural. You cannot be too demanding," says Majidi.

So, the director pretended to scold an assistant for "carelessness" at work and told him that he was fired. As the assistant's regular job involved taking care of the two children, they felt sad and cried. Hashemian walked toward Majidi, asking the director to forgive the assistant. Majidi nodded as if he was reluctant but agreed.

"He (Hashemian) was so excited and promptly jumped. The child quickly ran to the assistant and stopped him from 'leaving'. At that moment, you could see that the child thought it was a great thing," recalls Majidi.

But the children didn't know that the cameras were rolling, recording their emotions, which were edited to become formal content in the film.

"Of course, you cannot do such things for all scenes. You still have to correctly teach them (child artists) to induce emotions," says Majidi.