ABC Africa

Abbas Kiarostami's documentary began when a United Nations body invited him to Uganda. The purpose was to see the work of a women's organisation caring for children orphaned by AIDS and civil war, and Kiarostami and Seifollah Samadian in fact went to scout locations for a film to be made later. Over ten days they recorded more than twenty hours with the digital camera they had, and on returning decided the material was a film in itself. It was Kiarostami's first move to digital. The film does not tell the catastrophe through numbers; it holds for a long time on the children playing, laughing and looking into the camera. Whether that choice softens the suffering or gives people back to themselves became a matter of argument.