ABC Africa
[1] Invited by the United Nations to study the endeavors of the Uganda Women's Effort to Save Orphans, Kiarostami and his collaborator Seifollah Samadian initially went to the country to scout locations for a feature-length film.For Kiarostami, this film was a return to his early themes of resilient children in the face of adversity,[2] but for the first time it was outside his homeland with a more versatile format.Nevertheless, Iran’s foremost film-maker has succeeded in locating reasons for optimism among the nearly two million orphans left helpless by the ravages of civil war and AIDS.Set in a refugee camp in Kampala, Uganda, Kiarostami intersperses scenes of women and children dancing, singing, and laughing with somber images of the death rampant from numerous diseases.[3] Although this film is likely not the somber reflection on AIDS and civil war originally envisioned by the United Nations, it is a documentary of Kiarostami and Samadian's trip to Uganda, and the earnest reactions of the impacted women and children.