There are two documentaries by the director about the making of this film and the aftermath of the earthquake. He finds that the two lead boys, played by the Amapour (or Ahmed Poor) brothers, survived the earthquake.
The film is shot in Persian. However the dialogues between the door-maker and the stubborn elderly villager are in Turkish language, which is presumably Azerbaijan Turkish.
Babek Ahmedpoor, who starred as Ahmed, apparently did not die in the 1990 earthquake as Robert Osborne said. He made movies afterwards. Per the TCM showing of " The Story of Film: An Odyssey"
Ranked the number 94 non-English-speaking film in the critics' poll conducted by the BBC in 2018.