By Emb Hashmi
An Afghan film maker has produced a multi international award winning film, after premiere in Kabul. The Buzkashi Boys is the highly exclaimed story of two young boys in Kabul who dream of playing buzkashi, which is the Afghan national sport in which horseback riders compete for ownership of a headless goat. Before the boys can compete in the unusual sport, they must confront the muggy boundaries of life for poor underprivileged Afghans.
The award winning film, was produced in partnership with both Afghan and international crew. The highly acclaimed film recently won best drama at the LA Shorts Fest, which makes the film eligible to be nominated for an Academy Award.
Buzkashi Boys has provided an exceptional opportunity for a narrative, fictional film shot in war torn Afghanistan to reach an huge international audience and has energized the minute Afghan film industry.
Massih Tajzai, who worked as the trainee director on Buzkashi Boys, was born in to a family of actors, but says there were few opportunities for training in film-making. Several local Afghani universities offered film courses, but Tajzai said most of the training relied on outdated materials.
“Our film-makers here in Afghanistan are not professional. They did not study anything but they watched a lot of Indian films and foreign films. Now they’re just copying them without knowing what they’re doing,” he said. “Their films can’t show the culture of Afghanistan because it’s all copied.”
The film opens the door to many other talented film makers and actors who would otherwise lose hope in starting film projects in their hometown which has been in decade’s brutal violence with real streets portraying war torn movie sets.
