In the 2012 Santa Fe Film Festival’s presentation of this trio of short films about honor and right of passage, an Afghan boy, an ousted Iranian Prime Minister and an adolescent Somali search for a way to leave their mark on the world.
In Director Sam French’s “Pesaran-e-Buzkashi” (“Buzkashi Boys”, 69 mins) two adolescent boys subsist in Afghanistan, one of the most war-ravaged countries in the world. Rafi (Fawad Mohammadi) despairs that he will be anything other than a blacksmith whereas his friend Ahmad (Jawanmard Paiz) spends his days proudly waving his sash and declaring from the rooftops that he will be a Buzkashi Rider.
After a Buzkashi polo-type match in which horse riders score points with a lifeless goat, Ahmad ties his Buzkashi Rider scarf around Rafi’s waist to remind him he can be something else. “A blacksmith lives an honorable life.”
The monochromatic Kabul landscapes are strikingly beautiful even as some long shots of decayed buildings and public bus scrap heaps indicate better times.
When Ahmad steals a horse, gallops away into one of the scrap heaps and goes missing, Rafi is forced into a life-changing decision.
At first look, first time director Roozbeh Davand’s “Mossadegh,” (29 mins) might seem unrelated to this slate of shorts. However, it also is a film of hope and new life stages.
Iran. 1959. Six years after the CIA orchestrated coup that overthrew democratic Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh (David Diaan) from power, he lives under house arrest and suffers from a life-threatening condition. Newspapers report that the Shah wishes to murder Mossadegh because he continues to inspire the Iranian people.
When Mossadegh’s condition worsens, his son pleads with his father’s captors to send a new doctor. Behind-the-scenes agents send a CIA agent posing as a physician.
As the former prime minister watches children play outside his compound, he must decide whether to trust his son and his doctor. He wisely says, “Whether I die tomorrow or the next day, they will continue to play,” and kicks the ball to them.
“Asad” (18 mins) from Director Bryan Buckley is a coming-of-age allegory about a Somali boy who struggles to survive in his war-torn, Somalian town.
Surrounded by pockmarked, bullet-riddled buildings, Asad (Harun Mohammed) is an adolescent fisherman who’s never caught a fish. That’s right, not one. He wants to abandon his fisherman roots and join his grown up friends in the Badaadinta Badah (saviors of the sea, or pirates). Erasto (Ibrahim Moallim Hussein), Asad’s mentor tells him that he will never be one of the Badaadinta and that it would be better to one day bring back the greatest fish catch the village has ever seen.
Erasto who catches fish for the village market, entrusts Asad to carry home a yellow fin tuna to feed the boy’s family. Asad proudly carries the fish that is almost as big as he is thru the town when Mogadishu rebel soldiers come to town and steal it.
Asad must look for a different way to feed his hungry sister and heads out to sea in an ancient fishing boat, alone. Will he catch his first fish and save his family? Will he become a Savior of the Sea?
Hope for a father, a fisherman or a horse rider. Where does real hope lie except with our children?
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Shorts Program I will screen at 2:45 p.m on Friday, December 7 at the Center for Contemporary Arts Studio.
For more information and complete program and schedule, please visit the Santa Fe Film Festival website. To purchase tickets, visit TicketsSantaFe.org.
