Director Salim Shaheen in his office in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo / Getty Images
Director Salim Shaheen in his office in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo / Getty Images
Salim Shaheen is a one-man film industry, prepared to risk all in his mission to entertain, he tells Ashley Hamer.
It is a chilly Friday morning — the Afghan weekend — but Salim Shaheen, Afghanistan's "Sultan of Cinema", has graciously agreed to meet for a chat in his middle-class downtown Kabul neighbourhood. It's a kidnap danger zone and foreigners are encouraged to take taxis rather than wander the streets. In late September, a suicide bomber attacked a Shia mosque less than a kilometre from Shaheen's studio, killing six people.
In the face of perpetual threats, the director, producer and actor has, almost single-handedly, carried Afghanistan's film industry for more than two decades. Despite being barely educated, Shaheen has made more than 100 films: a variety of gaudy action and martial arts flicks, with plenty of melodrama and a lot of singing, always shot on a shoestring, mostly in Kabul but occasionally against a spectacular Afghan landscape. He is one of Afghanistan's biggest celebrities and its only film star — you find his DVDs in roadside stalls and he boasts of having fans even among the Taleban.
And now he is the subject of a film. Shaheen and his calico crew (a mixture of lifelong friends and his own relatives) are the heroes of The Prince of Nothingwood, a terrific documentary directed by French film-maker Sonia Kronlund, which is out this month after a strong showing at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
"The cinema industry in Afghanistan receives no help from government, from any organisation, and no one has ever paid any attention to us," Shaheen says. "That is why I call us Nothingwood."
Born into a wealthy family in Kabul, Shaheen is the son of an army commander — "a war hero", he says. His father and grandfather disapproved of cinema as a frivolous distraction and Shaheen says he was sneaking out from the age of 8 to a drive-in cinema park near his home to watch Indian star Dharmendra, his idol.
He made his first film aged 16 — an action movie called Invictus, using an old Z7 camera. "I spent 250 afghanis ($6) making it in black and white with no sound." He jokes about trying to flog copies for twice the amount it cost him to produce — and discovered that people actually loved it, and bought him out. At the time, says Shaheen, "no one was making cinema in Afghanistan. This is a poor country. We had only famous movies from India. I wanted to make famous Afghan cinema here." So he recruited his friends to become his film crew and cast, and worked in a VHS store to raise money to make films. Soon, he was making promotional videos for small businesses, and using these earnings to churn out feature films.
But while he made a career out of selling cartoon violence to his compatriots, very real violence was engulfing his country.
The film industry in Kabul, once banned under the Taliban, is thriving, but a lack of education and modern equipment has made progress challenging. Photo / Getty Images
In 1996, a stray rocket landed in the midst of Shaheen and his crew while they were filming, killing 10 people, including several actors. Shaheen was wounded by shrapnel and his cameraman partly blinded but, instead of rushing to hospital, the survivors filmed the devastation, determined not to abandon their set. They still have the tragic footage to prove it. "My slogan is death or cinema since my childhood," Shaheen says. "I am not scared to die."
Shaheen was already high profile by the time the Taleban took control of Kabul in September 1996 and banned all entertainment. Soon after, the militants came after him. He escaped and fled to Pakistan in 1997 with his wife, had several children and continued to make movies, before returning to his home country in 2004 after the overthrow of the Taleban. But he is still a target, he says, especially today, with the Taleban resurgent. "They are still waiting for me," he chuckles.
The first feature film he made on his return to Afghanistan became a national blockbuster. He says the film (roughly translated as Debt ) highlights corruption among the ruling elite and armed groups, and that he received death threats from certain businessmen after its release. He still has crooked officials attempting to bribe him to steer clear of topics such as fraud and extortion — but is quick to denounce, then ignore, such threats: "When people have called me and said 'We will kill you if you continue', I say 'Do it as soon as possible'."
Today, he has a big family to support: two wives and many sons and daughters. Four of his sons, including his 8-year-old, have starred in his films — but not one of his daughters.
"Some mullahs [Islamic leaders] are against women performing," he explains. "Two times I danced with a woman on film and the Afghan Parliament told me to stop this."
Women only appear in bit parts in his films. His leading lady is a 1.82m cross-dressing father-of-four, named Qurban Ali. Ali wafts into shot during the documentary wearing nail polish, lipstick and a burka, at which point Shaheen laughs: "You look like my mum!"
The danger for Shaheen and his family is real. But the actor has no plans to flee again: " ... I am staying here ... I will remain with my people."
Asked what he would do with an unlimited film budget, Shaheen says it would be an action movie about Afghanistan. "The real face of Afghanistan. We are not terrorists. We are just like Europeans. And I would cast Rambo and Jackie Chan in this movie because I want them to come here to feel the hospitality and love."
