Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat set the first scene of The orphanage, his second film, released in 2019 and selected in Cannes for the Directors’ Fortnight. In front of the giant screen, the hero, a young teenager dressed in a time-worn T-shirt, is ecstatic in front of a fight scene punctuated by sharp and impetuous punches, and applauds the luscious actresses with the mesmerizing dances. A feature film that takes on a particular resonance with the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan.
Shahrbanoo Sadat: “My production company, Wolf Pictures, has not been around since August. I do not care. This company is me. She will be where I will go! “
She built this film around the character of Quodratollah, a young street kid arrested by the police for having sold cinema tickets on the black market. Sent to an orphanage, he does the 400 blows and even discovers desire in a “happy” Kabul of the 1980s, before the dramatic arrival of the Taliban.
Its director, Shahrbanoo Sadat, was the special guest on Saturday, November 20, the first day of the festival. Mediterranean Women Films in Marseille. “ Shahrbanoo showed perseverance to see his film finally made, says producer Xavier Rocher. She was able to develop a real narrative around an Afghan cinema and we are very proud of the result. ”
Passionate about romantic comedies
For the filmmaker, this story serves to remember the history of his country. And this heritage, she is not the only one to want to preserve it. “For you, it’s a film that lasts 1 hour 30 minutes, but for us, it’s a generation story, the generation of my grandparents, of my parents, ours and maybe the next one” believes, with tears in her eyes, Rada Akbar, an Afghan photographer who has taken refuge in Paris since August, and who has come to attend the screening of the film in Marseille.
Shahrbanoo Sadat founded his production company at 23 Wolf Pictures. Three years later, in 2016, she directed her first film, Wolf and sheep. Both promising and unexpected beginnings in a country like Afghanistan. Paradoxically, being a woman turned out to be an asset. ” It was a real advantage, she explains. I was nobody, invisible. People didn’t take me seriously. I had unlimited freedom to do whatever I wanted. I could walk everywhere in Kabul. Go from one place to another, and just make movies. No one stood in my way since no one recognized me. “
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