Special Screening!
New Film by Abbas Kiarostami

"Documentaries can serve many purposes: to inform, educate, shock, and inspire. Kiarostami manages to accomplish all of those functions at the same time that he transcends them."-Scott Foundas, indieWire

For his first film shot outside Iran, acclaimed director Abbas Kiarostami went to Uganda to document the some 1.6 million orphans left by AIDS. He came on the invitation of the Uganda Women's Effort to Save the Orphans, but before you get out your handkerchiefs, hold on: the director of And Life Goes On finds life wherever he goes. ABC Africa shows how resilience and love are taking concrete form to help save a generation of Ugandans. UWESO has organized urban and village women left widowed by AIDS into cells of mutual support and creative entrepreneurship. They are creating a culture of saving and security, and in this context, women already raising their own children and grandchildren are taking in other orphans as well. That is the backdrop for a film alive with Kampala music and spontaneous dance, with Kiarostami's trademark tracking shots, and with the children themselves, at once irreverent and eager as they take over the camera, the crew's hearts, and finally the film: what was meant to be an investigative visit shot on digital video became the film itself. Thus no attempt was made to hide the luxury of the filmmakers' hotel directly across from shelled-out housing, or the unemotional workaday grimness of an AIDS clinic. Even there, life goes on. So, put away the handkerchief; you might be more inspired to get out your checkbook. (JB)