ABC Africa

In 2000, Kiarostami traveled to Africa at the request of the United Nations to document a humanitarian crisis unfolding in Uganda, where 1.5 million children were orphaned due to civil war and AIDS. Working outside of Iran and shooting on digital video for the first time, he returned with this disarmingly hopeful look at a country where death is ever-present, and life‚ embodied by the playful spirit of the children who peer curiously into his camera's searching, humane lens‚ flows on undiminished. Part idiosyncratic travelogue, part ode to childhood wonder, ABC Africa is quintessential Kiarostami in its movingly philosophical reflection on human resilience in the face of adversity.