But "The Beauty Academy of Kabul" isn't a comedy - it's a documentary, of an actual outreach program.

Beauty Therpay students are taught at the Beauty Academy in Queens Road, a few minutes walk from the main campus.

Other films in the series were The Beauty Academy of Kabul, The Afghan Chronicles, Beyond Belief and the recent Sundance selection, Afghan Star.

The salon is warmed by family - Maria's mom, Marie, works there - and longtime clients like Maria Buonagura, of Fort Lee, a devotee since Ms. Salandra attended Parisian Beauty Academy in Hackensack.

In "The Beauty Academy of Kabul," the director Liz Mermin documents the hilarious, moving and sometimes fractious meeting of diametrically different cultures, one having suffered unimaginable horrors and the other believing a good perm is the answer to everything.

Made by the New York filmmaker Liz Mermin ("The Beauty Academy of Kabul"), the program is set at a business-services company based in India but founded and run by Americans.

This tradition continues with a documentary called "The Beauty Academy of Kabul" and also with "Zaman, the Man From the Reeds," a feature shot in Iraq in the twilight of Saddam Hussein's rule.