Few countries are as mad about movies as Iran, and Mohsen Makhmalbaf makes this mania the subject of this charming, slyly witty work, made to mard the centenary of cinema. The director placed an advertisement for 100 actors and actresses to audition for his new film, and SALAAM CINEMA records the result: 5,000 people turn up, and after the inevitable melee, Makhmalbaf and his crew interview a stream of applicants. All of them want, in varying degrees of desperation, to be movie stars, and Makhmalbaf, both behind and in front of the camera, takes great pleasure in revealing their tenacity, vanity, and illusions. Sometimes gentle, sometimes burdening or harsh, SALAAM CINEMA shuttles between fiction and documentary, encouraging examination of the director's role in filmmaking, and ultimately, the significance of cinema in everyday life. The director, MOHSEN MAKHMALBAF was born in Tehran in 1957. He quit school at the age of 15 to suport his family, and at 17, was imprisoned for several years by the Pahlavi regime. Since 1981, he has made several internationally acclaimed films including THE PEDDLER (1986), THE CYCLIST (1988), MARRIAGE OF THE BLESSED (1989), SALAAM CINEMA (1995), GABBEH (1996), A MOMENT OF INNOCENCE (1996), THE SILENCE (1998), and KANDAHAR (2002).

In the mid-to-late 1990s, Iran began to be recognized as a refreshing source of low-budget, wryly naturalistic filmmaking, and Jafar Panahi's The White Balloon (winner of the Camera d'Or award at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival) was the first Iranian film to get a U. S. art-house release. Simple and spare yet filled with observant detail, it's a mild, beguiling movie about a 7-year-old girl's tenacious quest to buy a cherished goldfish for her family's New Year's Day celebration. That's really all there is to it, but it's wonderfully warm, funny, and generous in spirit. With an almost miraculous ability to capture moments and reality unhindered by the presence of a camera and crew, Panahi handles this seemingly trivial story as a child's emotional odyssey, set amidst the daily rhythms of Teheran as a city where kindness and cruelty can be found in close proximity. Anyone interested in international films and filmmakers should give this one high priority on their list of must-see movies. -Jeff Shannon.