Joy Of Madness

I’m not sure I fully understand the title of 14-year-old Hana Makhmalbaf’s documentary account of the casting of her sister Samira’s At Five in the Afternoon (see separate listing), but it’s not inappropriate. The Makhmalbafs, an Iranian family of filmmakers, trek through Kabul a bit like an invading army, trying to acquire actors from a reluctant populace for a progressive film about a young Afghan woman. Mutual misunderstandings and suspicions proliferate, often to telling and comic effect, with Samira and her father, Mohsen, sometimes playing bad cop and good cop to their prospective actors. In Farsi and Dari with subtitles. 73 min. (JR)

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