Asked by the UN International
Fund for Economic Development (IFAD) to make a film documenting the plight
of millions of Ugandan orphans ravaged by the recent civil war and the
scourge of AIDS, Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami responded with something
much more, a personal and poetic film that allows us to see the people,
the land, and the culture of Uganda without relentless images of despair.
The documentary, ABC Africa, captures a kaleidoscope of faces of
children and adults that display an enthusiasm for life that belies the
grim statistics. The children of Kampala may be without parents but they
are still children, ready to burst into wondrous song or dance, or simply
mug for the camera when given the opportunity.
ABC Africa illuminates
the work of the Uganda Women's Effort to Save orphans (UWESCO), an organization
of women willing to adopt these children even though they may have many
other mouths to feed. There is no voice-over narration in the film, only
interviews with Ugandan relief workers who describe the extent of the problems
they face. In trademark Kiarostami fashion, as a car drives through the
streets of Kampala and the countryside, the digital hand-held camera records
the passing scene, revealing both the beauty and the ugliness of Ugandan
life. In one extraordinary sequence, we share the grief as the camera pans
into a hospital for children dying of AIDS and follows a dead child being
wrapped in a blanket and put into a makeshift cardboard box, then wheeled
away on a bicycle to an unknown burial ground.
Equally memorable is a
five-minute segment shot in total darkness inside a hotel where the power
has failed due to regular midnight power cuts. All we hear is the conversation
of two men in Farsi as they struggle to find their hotel room, a hint of
the fear that Ugandans face each night and a metaphor for the darkness
in which millions of Africans live. The film also shows the well-meaning
but questionable efforts of a young Austrian family to adopt an orphaned
girl found on the streets and bring her to Austria. Though some might have
wanted ABC Africa to address the social, economic, and political
causes that have left 1.6 million children without parents, Kiarostami's
camera is simply present to each given moment and the result is a revelation.