Thiruvananthapuram: ‘Utopia’ is one film that war-torn Afghanistan has taken to its heart, it is also the country’s official entry to the Oscars, but for its Iranian director Hassan Nazer the film will always remain a devastating memory.
Six hours after Nazer and his crew left Afghanistan for Dubai on March 20, 2014, four teenage Taliban gunmen barged into the high-security Serena hotel they were staying and opened fire. More than 10 people were killed, including four women and two children. “It was Nowruz, the Iranian New Year. Many families who had come to Kabul were in this hotel. One of the persons shot dead was Sardar Ahmad, the AFP reporter. His French wife and two children were also killed,” Nazer said.
Rather than feeling fortunate, Nazer harbours a deep sense of guilt. “I have a gnawing feeling that the Taliban shooters had come for us,” Nazer said. What sowed this disquiet in the young filmmaker were the threatening writings found on the door of the hotel lobby. “These scribblings, which appeared after we checked in, targeted Shiites. More than 90 percent of us Iranians are Shiites, and the Taliban is Sunni,” Nazer said. Some of the actors in the film had also received death threats earlier. In fact, Nazer and his crew were supposed to fly to Dubai only a day after. “But we got a secret message to pack up and leave fast,” he said. They tried to get in touch with the families of bereaved but were told by friends in Afghanistan to stop being curious, that it would be harmful.
Shooting in Afghanistan was a risk Nazer willingly took upon himself. “I could have gone to Morocco or even some safe places in Afghanistan like Badakshan where I could have easily faked Kabul but I wanted to shoot in Kabul itself,” he said. But in a place like Afghanisatan, which is always in war, principles of filmmaking have to be subverted. “We were discouraged from planning our shooting schedules for security reasons. If we had planned to shoot in a market, we were told to shift location at the last moment,” the director said.
Changes were also made to the script in the interest of public safety. “For instance, we decided against shooting in a hospital in Kabul because we felt we could put the helpless patients at risk,” he said. He had no choice but to fake the Afghan hospital scene in a set he created in Scotland where he resides.
