Abbas Kiarostami receives a fax from an international organization asking him to direct a film about thousands of children orphaned in Africa. He accepts the offer, and heads to Africa with a DV camera in his hand. In this documentary, there are no scenes of naked children wandering around a plain, begging for mercy. As if to argue that such images were ′created′ by Western philanthropists in their arrogance, the children′s faces in this film are fresh and full of laughter. They are just like any other children in the world as they follow the director and his camera, their eyes gleaming with curiosity. Never-ceasing civil wars and diseases have crept through the region, leaving thousands of people dead and countless lives devastated. However, life still continues, just like the depiction of the Iranian refugees in his 1992 film And Life Goes on , who are absorbed in watching a soccer game on TV in a refugee camp even after they lost their beloved family homes because of a large-scale earthquake. If one finds a need to help the children after watching this film, it will be because the film, if anything, is about the endurance of life itself, and the audience has learned to appreciate it. A film teaching the ABCs to mankind all over again through Africa. (Nam In-Young)