Mohsen Makhmalbaf (Iran/France)
Based on the experience of a Canadian woman, this latest offering from Iranian master Mohsen Makhmalbaf is both visually fanciful and politically urgent. Journalist Nafas (Niloufar Pazira) goes underground into Afghanistan under the brutal Taliban regime to attempt to free her sister, left legless by an exploded landmine while attempting to escape with the rest of her family. The sister has promised that, if she is not out of Afghanistan by the next solar eclipse, she will take her life. Told in English voice-over, the film initially starts almost like an action war film, things quickly turn strange. Much of the absurdity is concerned with the use of the burka, the head-to-toe veil that women must wear even when being examined by a doctor. Nafas's journey across the desert, hiding out as one of the wives of a returning refugee and later traveling with a boy, has a deliberate allegorical and surreal quality, with moments of savage humour. - L.L.

(Sat. Sept. 8, 9:45 p.m., Varsity; Sat. Sept. 15, 12:30 p.m., Uptown)