What happens when a group
of hairdressers from America travel to Kabul
with the intention of telling Afghan women
how to do hair and makeup? This engaging,
optimistic documentary tracks a unique
development project: a shiny new beauty
school, funded in part by beauty-industry
mainstays, which sets out to teach the
latest cutting, coloring, and perming
techniques to practicing and aspiring Afghan
hairdressers and beauticians. The American
teachers, all volunteers, include three
Afghan-Americans returning home for the
first time in over twenty years. The Beauty
Academy of Kabul offers a rare glimpse into
Afghan women's lives, and documents the
poignant and often humorous process through
which women with very different experiences
of life come to learn about one another.
