No one knows better than Makhmalbaf that Iranians are movie mad, so when he placed a casting call for one hundred actors for a new film, he expected a crowd; what he got was a crush, 5,000 people just this side of a hadj. After genially announcing, "You are both the subject and the actors in the film," he begins auditions. What unfolds is a parade of individuals who, for love of cinema, are by turns brash, crafty, shy, touchingly open, unwittingly hilarious. From would-be Paul Newmans to women who are intellectual rebels under their chadors, this is very much about "casting." Makhmalbaf plays the film director as judge, tease, and actor. A brilliant exposé of the film that is in the hearts of a people, and the people that are the heart of cinema, this is experimental filmmaking in every sense, yet what we feel most is the director's controlling hand-precisely the paradox Makhmalbaf is exploring.