ABC Africa

Starring:Seyfolah Samadian
Studio: New Yorker Video
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Description

"Of all the movies I've seen this year, the one that has stayed most strongly in my mind is Abbas Kiarostami's ABC Africa." (Martin Scorsese)

Over the course of a ten-day visit to Uganda, Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry and The Wind Will Carry Us) uses his camera to capture and caress the faces of a thousand orphans. Although a documentary about the ravages of AIDS and civil war in Uganda may seem at first like a radical departure, one of the most remarkable things about ABC Africa is the way that Iran's most celebrated auteur makes such unlikely material very much his own.

In true Kiarostami style, an impressionistic, deceptively simple record of a journey becomes the film itself. This striking visual poem is full of echoes from his oeuvre: the hypnotic tracking shots from car windows, the dirt-road villages, the majestic landscapes and, above all, the emphasis on the resilience and resourcefulness of children.

Description

A tragedy of historic proportions. A war that has claimed more lives than all other current wars around the world, but outside of Africa, no one seems to have noticed. Nightline covers the war in Congo in this five part series. In the Heart of Darkness: War in the Congo (part 1) Fighting in Congo has involved as many as seven nations, displaced hundreds of thousands of people and killed millions more. In the Heart of Darkness: Town of Shabunda (part 2) The city of Shabunda and its people have been ravaged by war. Meet a Catholic priest that tries to protect the community from the brutality of the conflict. In the Heart of Darkness: Kisangani (part 3) Kisangani was once an economic center where many of the country's diamonds were sold. Heavy fighting has choked off all river commerce for the community, and caused many civilian deaths. In the Heart of Darkness: The Porter (part 4) Nightline spends a day in the life of a Congolese porter. She is an extraordinary woman who is supporting ten children as a roadside carrier. In the Heart of Darkness: The Curse of Wealth (part 5) At the heart of the continent, the richest patch of earth on the planet. The armies drawn by the wealth plunder, rape and kill. The people fleeing the soldiers are dying in the jungles by the hundreds of thousands. Correspondent: Ted Koppel

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10 days with Ugandan orphans
Kiarostami Amazes
self-absorbed and ignorant
Loads of potential....but falls far short!

ABC Africa
Starring: Seyfolah Samadian
Manufacturer: New Yorker Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Art House & International | Genres | DVD | Video

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ASIN: B0008FXSTM
Release Date: 2005-06-14

Description

"Of all the movies I've seen this year, the one that has stayed most strongly in my mind is Abbas Kiarostami's ABC Africa." (Martin Scorsese)

Over the course of a ten-day visit to Uganda, Abbas Kiarostami (Taste of Cherry and The Wind Will Carry Us) uses his camera to capture and caress the faces of a thousand orphans. Although a documentary about the ravages of AIDS and civil war in Uganda may seem at first like a radical departure, one of the most remarkable things about ABC Africa is the way that Iran's most celebrated auteur makes such unlikely material very much his own.

Alternately heartbreaking and optimistic, ABC Africa records a people struggling to survive. Filled with laughter and music, and pulsing with life, Kiarostami's vision attests to Africa's sunny spirit

Customer Reviews:

10 days with Ugandan orphans.......2007-01-24

Written, directed, and edited by the Iranian film maker Abbas Kiarostami, this documentary portrays the plight of Uganda's 2 million children who have been orphaned by the ravages of civil war, life under the psychopathic despot Idi Amin, and AIDS. Kiarostami made the film at the request of the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development. If you have been to Africa the sights and sounds are very familiar--piles of smoldering garbage, orange clay landscape, rutted roads, rusted corrugated tin roofs, bicycles, the ubiquitous rubber flip-flop sandals, and a weary yet resilient, elegant, and remarkably joyful people. In the film's most powerful sequence, a nurse wraps a dead child in a dirty blanket, packs him in half of a cardboard box ripped open for the purpose, and then loads the corpse onto the back of a bicycle. In particular, Kiarostami highlights the work of UWESO--Ugandan Women's Efforts To Save Children, an all volunteer organization of women who give themselves to care for the orphans and to train women in small business skills. The film has almost no narrative, and would have been even more powerful if it had. But the images speak for themselves. The title refers to a t-shirt worn by a small child featured in the film who was adopted by a young Austrian couple.

Kiarostami Amazes.......2006-11-27

It would have been easy for Abbas Kiarostami to fly to Uganda and play "Bono" -- giving the world "simple answers" (send money; buy "red" products) for "simple problems" (they have AIDS and are dying) -- instead he takes a harder path: providing no answers or questions, forcing the viewer to find the significance for all that he just saw. It's a difficult picture, because it appears as if there's very little going on, besides some tourist videography, but soon you start to question the helpfulness of the UN (in sending a camera crew instead of something better) and the savings clubs for the women, and the adoption of little Ugandans by Europeans. The thread of futility strikes daggers at the heart of "Oprah Do-Gooderism" by wondering if it's all for naught. There are beautiful scenes in this movie (of children dancing and singing and automobiles driving along dirt paths) and scenes of torment both of which feed into what we stereotypically expected from the film and from "Africa" itself. Perhaps it's all lost on this age which views self-reflection as something foreign.

self-absorbed and ignorant.......2006-01-09

This documentary was clearly made by a man who had not only never been to "Africa" (Uganda, actually), but had done absolutely no research prior to his filming. The film is more a boring examination of Samadian's culture shock and ignorant observations, then an examination of the effects of HIV/AIDS on Uganda. Even the title, ABC Africa, reflects Samadian's ignorance of the African continent in all its diversity--it is similar to titling a film about Sweden "ABC Europe." It is painful to watch anyone stumbling through their first journey in a new culture--culture shock and ignorance are never flattering--but not to realize one's woefully inadequate knowledge of a subject and distribute one's experience as a documentary is just plain crazy. Someone should have taken him aside and told him he was acting a fool.

Loads of potential....but falls far short!.......2005-09-04

I agree with the previous reviewer. Martin Scorcese must have poor taste in movies. In fact, most of his suck, so I shoulda known better. Anyway, this film takes a subject that is very much worth making a film about, has some great shots in it, but overall, there's NO story whatsoever. Felt like an 84-minute commercial for Feed the Children. Not very moving or very educational. I think the folks that consider this a "top 10" are just "feel-gooders," who rated the movie more on the subject matter than the actual film itself. You want a better movie that also shows you some of the cultural in that region, see Hotel Rwanda, or even Endurance. Much better.

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Manufacturer: ABC News
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ABC News correspondent David Wright and his team traveled the length of Darfur, which is the size of Texas in a country that is the largest in Africa. At least 200 people a day are dying in the refugee camps of Darfur, and yet the refugees keep on coming. And while the relief organizations are doing all they can to help them - many parts of Darfur simply cannot be served because the conflict is raging and those areas cannot be safely reached. Nightline examines the crisis that has been identified, by many as nothing short of genocide and explains the political, strategic and logistical obstacles that stand in the way of solving this man-made disaster.

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He's been in power for 25 years. And he's accused of taking over a country filled with promise and almost single-handedly bringing it to its knees. In 1980, Robert Mugabe inherited the breadbasket of the African continent and transformed Zimbabwe into a place of utter despair where nearly 40 percent of the population is starving, according to the United Nations World Food Programme. ABC News reports secretly recorded evidence of Zimbabwe's humanitarian crisis and air ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl's exclusive interview with Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe.

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ABC News Nightline South Africa Series

Manufacturer: ABC News
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Ted Koppel goes to South Africa to speak with members of the African National Congress, South African government officials, members of the Zulu nation, and South Africans themselves on the future of South Africa as Nelson Mandela is about to be released from prison. Correspondent: Ted Koppel, Jeff Greenfield, James Walker, Don Kladstrup

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ABC News Nightline An Ancient Art Goes High-Tech

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Meet Pokkei Bernardi. Pokkei's a tracker. He can look at a track on the ground and tell you what kind of animal left it and when. He can look at a bush and tell you what animals were feeding there yesterday. For centuries, bushman hunters like Pokkei Bernardi in South Africa and Benson Kupingi in Namibia have tracked animals in the wild. Today, tracking is an age-old tradition, an art, handed down through generations. ABC News tells the story of how high technology is aiding and improving the ancient art of tracking animals in the bush. This pairing of ancient skill and high technology has profound implications not only for conservation, but for the bushmen themselves. Correspondent: Richard Gizbert.

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ABC News reports on the ultimate story of luck involving three people: a little boy born and living in a very dangerous country, with no parents to protect him and no hope for the future, and an American couple - a world famous doctor and his girlfriend - who would meet the boy by chance. Dr. Ian Zlotolow, a prominent doctor specializing in creating prosthetic parts for facial wounds or deformities, met Lansana Lapia while on medical leave from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York to help those in need in Sierra Leone. Dr. Zlotolow took a special liking to Lapia, whose leg was disintegrating. The doctor gave up his position in New York and moved to Oakland, CA to give Lapia a better life in the United States. Which one is really the lucky one? This "20/20" show contains the following additional stories: Diet Meals Asexuals Enough! With John Stossel

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