Release of Kandahar film in London
London, Nov 16,2001, IRNA

Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Kandahar, winner of the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury at Cannes this year, was put on release at the ICA cinema in London Friday. The illuminating and timely release, given four-star ratings by the BBC and Guardian film guides, charts a woman's perilous journey from Iran to Afghanistan to find her sister.

The Guardian suggested that the film, premiered in the UK at the Edinburgh Film Festival in August, may turn out to be a historical document.

"Apart from anything else, Makhmalbaf has shown that he genuinely cared for the plight of Afghan women under the Taliban many moons before our prime minister (Tony Blair) affected brow-furrowing concern on the subject," the daily said.

In its review, the BBC said the portrayal of Afghanistan was of "unrelenting sadness" and that it was "impossible not to emerge from the cinema and wonder about the plight of the Afghan people today."