Posts Tagged ‘Sam French’
Buzkashi Boys
“This is going to be awesome,” boomed the American director through his megaphone.
The Afghan horsemen, who were lined up in front of him on a muddy plain close to the outskirts of Kabul, boomed back: “Allah Akbar – God is Great”, as they punched the air with their fists.
So began Buzkashi Boys – an American-funded film whose crew includes the cameraman from the Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker.
The film, which finished shooting on Friday, is based around Afghanistan’s national sport – Buzkashi.
The game is a largely lawless and violent mix of rugby and polo played with a beheaded calf for a ball. Up to fifty riders compete for money as they try to rip the headless carcass from each another before dumping it in a chalk circle in the middle of a large pitch. The best players, whose horses are worth up to $10,000, are revered as national heroes in a country that lacks sports idols.
The men behind Buzkashi Boys – Hollywood-trained American director Sam French and Afghan-Canadian producer Ariel Nasr – hope their film will kick start the regeneration of an Afghan film industry that decades of war and Taliban repression has left in tatters. Read the rest of this entry »
