By Jason Apuzzo. There was an interesting article recently in The New York Times about a brand new film called The Black Tulip, from first-time feature director Sonia Nassery Cole – an Afghan expatriate whose day job involves running the Afghanistan World Foundation, a charity focused on refugees and women’s rights. Ms. Cole apparently fled Afghanistan as a teenager in 1979 (after the Soviet invasion), and gained notoriety at that time by writing a letter to then-President Ronald Reagan – who subsequently invited her to the White House. President Reagan would subsequently put her in contact with the Afghanistan Relief Committee, providing her with a network of philanthropic contacts that would eventually help Cole direct The Black Tulip on location in Afghanistan, in the midst of the current war.
The Times article details the extraordinary hardships and complexities associated with getting this film made in contemporary Afghanistan – the most shocking of which reportedly involved militants locating the film’s original lead actress, Zarifa Jahon, and cutting off her feet. Jahon was subsequently replaced by Ms. Cole herself – although, it’s fair to mention, this incident has been disputed by Latif Ahmadi, head of the Afghan Film Organization – and Jahon herself currently resides in a remote part of the country, apparently unavailable for comment. In any case, Ms. Cole certainly had to deal with threats of violence, crew defections and shortness of funds, yet her film unspooled in Kabul yesterday – with a possible appearance at Sundance ahead. Afghanistan has apparently already submitted the picture as its entry for best foreign film at the next Academy Awards.
Check out the trailer for the film above. WARNING: THE TRAILER ABOVE CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS.
We look forward to getting a look at the film when it inevitably arrives in the States in the months to come, and we otherwise wish the irrepressible Ms. Cole the best with her film.
Posted on September 24th, 2010 at 10:22am.
Wow, that was a powerful trailer. And the most bizarre thing about it, I almost feel like I’ve seen something that no one ever wanted me to, like a hushed truth. It works on a different level than the watered down portrayals of militant jihadists you see in movies like The Kingdom. After watching that trailer, the Jihadis in Iron Man almost seem comical and lovable by comparison. These are the movies that Hollywood should have been making ever since 2002, in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Sadly, and expectedly, no one in Hollywood is willing to give up their feet for the truth, if that in fact happened. Even if that isn’t accurate, no one in Hollywood is willing to be the next Theo Van Gogh. A shame since speaking truth seems so necessary in this case.
It keeps amazing me how filmmakers around the world risk their lives to make movies exposing tyranny, like this lady who risked her life to make a movie about the Taliban, the prior filmmaker who spend years in a Communist Chinese jail for making a movie about Tibetan songs, and all those Iranian filmmakers who’ve been put in jail for making movies that criticize the Iranian regime.
Yet, Hollywood’s filmmakers who lived in the safest, best-paid, and most pampered working environment possible are too afraid to make even one movie that denounces radical Islam, Chinese Communist tyranny, North Korean tyranny, Iranian tyranny, or any other real evil that exists in the world. Instead all they do is go after their own country America, which is the safest target possible because we all know they’ll never get in any real trouble for that.
Hollywood filmmakers are too chicken to make an honest and accurate movie about life in the US! never mind the evils of other places. Too worried about the costs involved with their being “popular” and or being blacklisted by the other self righteous in tinsel town…but the trappings of tyrrany are costumed in many fashions.
That timeline seems a little off.
i.e., she wrote the letter later … at least, that’s how the NY Times reports it.
I assumed that was probably what you meant, but in that sentence “at that time” and “then-President” are linked to “1979”.
Yes, Josh, that’s because I botched it. 🙂