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Synopsis

Joy of Madness is the first feature film by 14-year-old Hana Makhmalbaf. Shot on digital video, the film follows Hana's older sister, Samira, as she makes her latest film, At Five in the Afternoon, in war scarred Kabul.

Brilliantly capturing the many challenges that a film-maker faces offers an intimate and illuminating portrait of a remarkable film-maker triumphing over great adversity. More than this, though, the film offers an uncompromising, provocative and sometimes blackly funny insight into the fears, hopes and courage of the women of Afghanistan.

Joy of Madness is less a 'behind-the-scenes' documentary, and more a fiercely independent, unavoidably political film-about-film. The unique work exposes the fears and anxieties which run rife in post-Taliban Afghanistan in a way that will surprise and delight in equal measure.