“Hollywood has everything. It has all the right conditions for creating cinema. People don’t live in a war zone. We have very little money and sometimes we don’t even know if we will manage to finish a film, for fear that something could happen because our country is always threatened. We don’t make films to get power, or money. We just want to transmit something that is important to people”
-Salim Shaheen at the Biografilm Festival in Bologna, Artribune, June 14, 2017.
Tonight at the Cinema La Compagnia in downtown Florence the Middle East Now program presents Nothingwood Party a documentary by one of Afghanistan’s most important contemporary filmmakers Sonia Kronlund about the work of Afghan movie veteran Salim Shaheen, who has created more than 100 feature films in Afghanistan, “shooting throughout times of strife and bloodshed” The Guardian in a country that is “nothing like Hollywood, or Bollywood” where “simply watching one [a film] can get you killed by the Taliban” The National (Abu Dhabi).
Nothingwood Party premiered this year at the Cannes Film Festival.
“Il valore della metafora è spiazzante: nei luoghi di repressione, dove si respira aria di regime e censura e ogni forma di espressione artistica è bandita, un omaccione riesce a ritagliarsi una fetta di creatività anarchica, secondo una libertà tutta sua di inventare” (Mymovies)
See this interview with Shaheen by Gabriele Niola at the Cannes Film Festival:
NOTHINGWOOD PARTY di Sonia Kronlund
(2017, Francia / Germania, 85 Min) – V. originale con sott. italiano
Programma proiezioni:
CINEMA LA COMPAGNIA (Via Camillo Cavour, 50/R Firenze)
Ingresso ridotto per gli iscritti a questa newsletter.
MARTEDì 19 DICEMBRE, ORE 21.00
(presentazione del film, in collegamento la regista)
MERCOLEDì 20: ORE 19.00
VENERDì 22: ORE 15.00
SABATO 23: ORE 17.00
DOMENICA 24: ORE 21.00
LUNEDì 25: ORE 19.00
MARTEDì 26: ORE 21.00
MERCOLEDì 27: ORE 17.00
GIOVEDì 28: ORE 15.00
VENERDì 29: ORE 19.00
SABATO 30: ORE 17.00
DOMENICA 31: ORE 15.00
Also read: Meet Salim Shaheen, Afghanistan’s ‘Sultan of Cinema’, The Telegraph, Deceember 4, 2017 link