At age 19, Hana Makhmalbaf has two feature films to her credit; the first, Joy of Madness (2004), was a behind-the-scenes doc detailing the production of her similarly prodigious sister Samira’s film At Five in the Afternoon.  With Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame (Feb. 28, 8pm, Isabel Bader) Makhmalbaf the (even) younger moves out of her family’s long shadow. It’s a deceptively muted — and then climactically explosive — broadside against the Taliban set in the Afghani city of Bamian.

It’s the same place where, in 2001, the Taliban destroyed a pair of massive fifth-century Buddha carvings — an international scandal already documented in Christian Frei’s 2005 film The Giant Buddhas. The magnificent statues loom in absentia over Makhmalbaf’s pointed parable. Inspired by her neighbour’s recitations, smiley post-toddler Baktay (Nikbakht Noruz) decides she wants to go to school.  Her first unofficial lesson is in economics, as she tries to barter some eggs for the pen and paper she’ll need for class. That’s a head-scratcher, but nothing compared to the ensuing tutorial in culture studies, as she’s menaced by a callow cabal of boys playing “Taliban.”

The equation of some junior bullies with a brutal, stifling theocracy may read as didactic, or play that way, as it did in The Kite Runner. But the film’s naturalistic feel and brief running time ameliorate the bluntness of the allegory. The last shot, meanwhile, ensures that it retains its sting.