Culture
20 Feb 04

Afghan wigs

Tara Brady talks to Julie Brocquy, producer of Osama, the acclaimed Afghan film which tells the story of a young girl forced to disguise herself as a boy to survive life under the Taliban regime.

Osama is the first film to emerge from Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, and attempts to document the brutal realities of life under the regime. Almost inevitably, Osama focuses on the oppression of women through the eyes of a 12-year-old girl (brilliantly essayed by debutante actress Marina Golbahari) and her mother, struggling to survive after a Taliban curfew is passed forbidding women to leave home without a male relative. With no males in the family, the family face a stark choice – starve, or try to pass the young girl off as a boy named Osama so that she can work. The plan comes unstuck when the girl is conscripted into a Taliban army training camp and it becomes increasingly difficult for her to conceal her true identity.

While the subject matter alone ensures that the film will be fascinating for those with even a passing interest in geopolitics, Osama is an equally accomplished film – a powerful, harrowing portrait of a devastating human tragedy at the hands of religious despots who seek to control every aspect of the citizens’ lives, bolstered by beautifully stark images and naturalistic performances. Indeed, the film has not only wowed audiences at the Cannes Film Festival, but it has just landed the Golden Globe for best Foreign Film, a development which has pleased the film’s Irish producer, Julie Le Brocquy immensely.
“It’s wonderful,” she told Moviehouse recently, “there’s obviously a limited market for something like Osama here in Ireland, and while it’s important to get bums on seats, mostly it’s great for us in terms of getting other projects financed. The concept of our company is to make films about people whose voices wouldn’t otherwise be heard, so getting the films made and out there is our priority. They aren’t films which will gross a great deal of money, but they’re low-budget in the first place.
“Osama is a good example of what we’re about,” continues Julie. “We’re trying to deal with stories that are important, but we are trying to tell them through the narrative in an entertaining way, so that there’s some potential for crossover appeal beyond the art-house circuit because the story is strong enough.”
How accurate is Osama as an account of life under the Taliban?
“Well, it’s a young girl walking through people’s lives. It isn’t strictly a true story, but it is the reality of life under the Taliban. The only thing depicted by the screenplay that didn’t happen was the Western journalist getting shot. That was artistic licence, but the central premise – the little girl dressing as a boy – was inspired by the true story of a little girl who desperately wanted to go to school and disguised herself as a boy, but got caught doing so. It was originally called something else and it had a happy ending, but by the time it was being shot, it was clear that a happy ending would not be the most appropriate or accurate.”
As one might imagine, the project was fraught with logistical difficulties.
“It was an incredible journey,” says Julie, “when we first came to the project, it was written on two pieces of A4 paper.”
Needless to say, from there on in, everything – including seeking assistance from the Iranian government, and paying a crew without bank-accounts – fell on the shoulders of the producer.
“It was tough getting everything to fall into place, but I cannot tell you how satisfying it is to have been involved with this. It just came to us completely out of the blue. We were at an event with hundreds of other film financiers and no-one else saw this, and now it’s been praised at Cannes and it has won a Golden Globe. Suddenly people are calling us. People actually want to be part of our next project.”
This forthcoming film, and indeed the producer’s next few projects will concern the Islamic world.
“Right now, that’s our focus. We’ve done Osama, but we’ve co-produced two other films as well, and we probably have about ten more Islamic projects on our slate. The majority of those focus on getting the Islamic voice heard, but this isn’t about perpetuating Islamic principles. This is about creating a counterpoint to the degree of ignorance and fear surrounding that culture and it’s about generating empathy through the things that happen to the characters in our films. There are such ridiculous assumptions about Islam, and people frequently equate the entire belief system with regimes like the Saudis or the Taliban, or assume that Muslim women have no sexuality. That has to change. We can’t just say that the West is about freedom, and the Islamic world is the opposite. When you look at the images we bombard our young women with, and how we expect them to dress, you have to consider that in some ways our culture has become just as restrictive as a Burkha. In my own experience working in the City some years ago, people warned me not to wear trouser suits because it gave my sexuality away. That’s hardly freedom.”
Osama isn’t just good news for Julie and her production company. Contrary to some erroneous reports in the press, Marina Golbahari’s life has greatly improved since her star-making debut.
“People asked how did she put in such a wonderful performance, because she’s only 13 now. But she was 11 when that movie was shot, and the Taliban had been in power for most of her life, so the wonder she expresses seeing boys at play or boys at school is quite legitimate. She would never have seen such things, because only boys were permitted to go to school. Now she’s just bought a house for her family. She’s won two Best Actress awards, she has already starred in another Afghani film, and we’ve cast her in our next project. It’s a success story by any standards, particularly in Afghanistan, a Third World country.”
It’s also a great-news story for director Siddiq Barmak. Having fled the regime and taken refuge in Pakistan, all of the filmmaker’s work was destroyed during the Taliban’s reign. Things are a little different now.
“He just got back to Kabul with his Golden Globe,” laughs Julie, “and it’s like Beatlemania over there. His family haven’t even seen him, he’s shaking so many hands!”