ABC Africa

For his first film shot outside Iran, Kiarostami went to Uganda to document the reality of some 1.6 million orphans left by AIDS. But before you get out your handkerchiefs, hold on: the director of And Life Goes On finds life wherever he goes. The Uganda Women’s Effort to Save Orphans has organized women 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. 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 workaday grimness of an AIDS clinic. Even there, life goes on.