Jacob Baynham

July 2, 2006

Kite Runner in Kabul

It was a cool night in Kabul , and gathered around an extravagant Afghan feast in a compound garden was a group of people plotting the best methods of shooting in this country. But it wasn't guns they were talking about, it was films.

The people around the table are in the process of turning Khaled Hosseini's bestselling novel The Kite Runner into a major Hollywood production. After months of pouring over maps and satellite photographs of the city, DreamWorks director Marc Forster and producer Bennett Walsh had arrived in Kabul to get a feel for the scene and make some important decisions about the best way to make their film.

The Kite Runner is perhaps the most successful novel in English produced by an Afghan writer in the post-Taliban period. It is a story of two friends growing up in Kabul in the 1970s, before their country was rocked by the beginnings of what was to be 25 years of endless war. Between Afghanistan and San Francisco , it charts the course of the unraveling of the nation and the emotions of those who fled as they struggled to come to terms with that. Hosseini spins a graceful, magical yarn of tragedy and hope of two friends and their families. It is not hard to imagine that it is the perfect material for a blockbuster Hollywood hit.

But how does one film in a country still rife with conflict? And moreover, where does a director find actors in a place where for five years arts and entertainment were systematically stamped out?

New York-based producer Bennett Walsh found part of the answer in a small, three-year-old, Kabul Social Organization called the Foundation for Culture and Civic Society. FCCS is working to foster a renaissance for the arts and media in Afghanistan after years of poverty, war and illiteracy have pushed them to the brink of extinction. The programs of FCCS support and encourage musicians, writers, actors, artists and journalists throughout the country. Even with the recent scarcity of Afghan performers, FCCS director Timor Hakimyar said he had no difficulty finding a pool of actors.

“I have more than 20 years background with artists in Afghanistan , so they were easy to find,” he said.

A total of 200 actors and actresses were rounded up by FCCS for possible roles in the film. Casting director Kate Dowd flew in from the U.S.A. to select a group of them. After a month of auditions, meetings and visits to schools, Dowd has selected a cast of 27 actors.

And as for the filming? Bennett Walsh says that a company decision will mean The Kite Runner will not be filmed in Kabul for safety reasons. Instead, it will be shot in western China , San Francisco and perhaps Pakistan , starting this autumn.

Back at the dinner table in the FCCS compound garden, Walsh and Forster praise the organization for their assistance, and say that they hope to cooperate more in the future.

“This is a very special thing for Afghanistan , and especially FCCS,” Hakimyar said.