Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Stoutor It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

jcappy ABC Africa, which is simply Kiarostami's response to a plea for exposure and "international attention" by a Uganda's women organization to the plight of 2 million AIDS (and war) orphans, may be viewed as a reflective journal piece, a painterly poem, and a political support project all in one.Certainly, Kiarostami's approach is low-key, and understandably limited by an outsider's perspective. He must apprise all through a sensitivity to cultural differences--and privileges. So his work relies on an egalitarianism in the sense that it flows out of a plurality of centers that Kiarostami and his cameras gravitate to. Thus, detachment is minimized both by the use of hand-held digital and still cameras, and by the participation of all--crew and "cast"--in the goings on of film. And the integration of sound, song, dance, color, and voice, are made convincingly real. This is an intuitive, and congenial documentation, but never gives any indication of being a puff piece. If Kiarostami doesn't delve too deeply into the more disturbing side of the realty he depicts, it may well be that he's acknowledging his guest status--and perhaps, understandably, his lack of knowledge.In any case, the results are impressive--lyrical, screen-filled images insist on the beauty and reality of the unseen. Kiarostami is the poet-painter who fills his surfaces with both filmic and still portraits of orphans, women and taxi drivers. Heads, faces, clapping hands, and skin are joined to movement, gestures, and intonations which constitute an open social world--one in which Kiarostami himself joins by gesture, and voice as he bobs his camera in the midst of the long, colorful boys-chant scene. Almost everyone gets to have fun with his cameras and some resistant ones quickly break into bold smiles. But the lyricism is tempered by the AIDS center scenes, and by an invariably non-romanticized approach which never spares us the dire physical and social contexts of these phoenix-like women and children.Yes, Kiarostami does make a political statement in "ABC Africa"--he simply makes visible the lives of the Ugandan orphans and the courageous, hard-working women who have committed to saving their lives. "Imagine that grandmother living with 35 kids..." "half of their life in the dark" (no electricity) says one of the crew in the black out scene. "Humans can adapt to anything..." another says, and what is more human than the human-ness of these people, is the film's point. A 10 year commitment to each child's independence and empowerment--clothing, educating, providing safety for, feeding, economizing, is a collective endeavor worth shouting from the rooftops.But Kiarostami makes a number of subtle points as regards the cultural/political blocks this army of volunteers must counter in order to survive. A means Abstincenc, B means Be faithful and C means Condom with "C" being a last resort only. The Pope's image is evident all around and US aid is behind him-- a poster of Bob Marley can hardly compete with that. Then there is the government which is a part of the process and names a lot of the rules by which the work proceeds and is financed. On the countering side you have a strong woman's world view--the few men who appear blend in with the women and children-- which is like the African sun referred to by the crew in the black-out scene."ABC Africa's" truly remarkable ending has cumulus clouds transforming into the full faces of the dead and the living down below the clouds. As the adopted Ugandan girl is flown to her new home in Austria, some kind of visibility and solidarity has been achieved for those on and under the dispossessed terrain below.

rasecz Kiarostami is invited by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to see the work of Uganda Women's Effort to Save Orphans (UWESO). Carrying a couple of camcorders, the director sets to document what he sees. The film material covers the period from April 2000 to March 2001.The ravages of civil war, AIDS and also malaria have resulted in a plenitude of orphans in Uganda. It is for them that UWESO exists.Kiarostami makes at least one extended visit to Masaka, the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic in Uganda. This is the kind of place where electricity is cut out at midnight. One of the longest take in the film is shot in a pitch black night after the lights go out.Efforts to control the spread of AIDS is hampered by religion. Use of condoms is discouraged by the religious. Virginity is advocated as the correct alternative. Fat chance. Not surprisingly, 15 to 45 years men die from AIDS. The result is that towns are devoid of adult males.Kiarostami never misses an opportunity to film kids. It is an old interest of his. Moreover UWESO is there for them.Kiarostami meets an Austrian couple, a doctor and a teacher, who adopt a little girl. Elsewhere a little boy catches Kiarostami's attention. The camera approaches and zooms in. This little boy has eerily brilliant sky blue eyes.

zetes Heartbreaking and beautiful documentary from Abbas Kiarostami, who once again proves that he's one of the best working directors. It's an account of AIDS-stricken Uganda and the group of women who are helping out by taking care of the over 1.5 million orphans. The documentary, shot on two digital, handheld cameras, shifts between a fact-finding mission and a more sublime bit of semi-ethnographic documentation. Kids love the camera, and they swarm around Kiarostami and his other camera operator, Seyfolah Samadian. They dance and sing and jump in front of the camera. The two men have an excellent eye for images, and they catch many that are powerful and beautiful. The music is always beautiful. As much as I loved this film, I had to groan at its final moments, which prove that Kiarostami is as much a manipulator as any of the directors who regularly get criticized for that.

lowolf Moving awkardly and intrusively through Ugandan villages, in a stated attempt to document the work of an Aids orphanage and the crisis of Aids in Uganda, Kiarostami offers us contrived glimpses of a so called "reality." He fails to tell any particular story of poverty, Aids, NGOs, or orphaned children. Instead, he indulges in voyeurism and paternalism, revealing the great distance between the struggles and daily realities of Ugandan villages and the touristic comforts of Western filmmakers staying at the Kampala hotel.Originally intended as scoping work for a subsequent project, ABC Africa might have been a more in-depth and thought-provokig piece of work had he used this footage as preliminary work. It can not stand on its own as a piece of in-depth documentation as it does nothing more than provide images intended to shock Western audiences about poverty in Africa. Long, unedited shots of kids playing in front of the camera show the intrusion of Western filmmakers. Rushing to capture "good footage" of a young boy pushing a girl child carrying heavy wood or of the orphanage staff preparing the body of a child who recently died compromises the integrity of his work and reveals the cursory nature of the footage and of his experience in Uganda.While a certain spirit of village life in Africa is conveyed, it's authenticity is sacrificed by Kiarostami's inability to engage his "actors" as individuals with stories to share. Despite his articulated goal to provide images for people to construct their own meaning and build personal "movies" in their mind, Kirostami's casual style objectifies the experiences that he tries to depict authentically.