The Beauty Academy of Kabul

A team of women attempts to bring a vital part of the American way of life to war-torn Afghanistan in this documentary. Sponsored by U.S.-based manufacturers of hair-care products and cosmetics, a group of American volunteers traveled to Afghanistan to start the nation's first Western-styled school of cosmetology after the collapse of the Taliban. Eager to offer Afghan women a different way of looking at themselves and others, the friendly but often gregarious Americans occasionally find themselves at odds with their Afghan students, who still possess deeply ingrained notions of modesty and gender inequality as they learn to style hair and apply makeup as they do in the West. The Beauty Academy of Kabul was shown in competition at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival.