Deedenow Cinema is a private Afghan film and television production company founded by young Afghan filmmakers and media activists in Kabul. Its mission is to support the work of Afghan film and media workers and communicate its message of freedom of expression, peace and justice worldwide. We produce Afghan Films and assist in all areas of media research and production with the goal of growing an effective media voice for young Afghanistan.
A refugee writer/poet is trying to make relation with the city he has moved into but he fails. A man alone, he is a citizen of nowhere thus he tries to find a link between his present and past. He suffers solitude and tries to find a meaning for his life, could it be love, love of a human being. At the end he leaves the city and its crazy people, but could this be a concrete solution for him? In three words this film is about: nostalgia, solitude and homelessness.
“Within the mists” is the title of an independent short film in post production by Deedenow Cinema Afghanistan and Rem-spot Italy.
The story is about an artist being lost within the mists of the city he lives in. He is being lost in his illusions and the existing realities around him and tries to come out of this situation.
Smail Djennadi has played the role of Mr. X in this short film.
The bad whether this year lengthened the project until mid January while it had began late November.
It has been now three years of my residence in Italy, and so far what only I could do was writing screenplays for short films hoping to be realized one day on the land I am trying to find me once again out of the mists that surrounds me. Out of several screenplays I have written so far to be self produced, this short is the first one as the beginning of moving on track once again.
It has been a nice experience though, especially getting to know many good people and making many good friends and collaborators that could result collaborations in the future projects.
Here I ought to thank the crew members; Marco Masante, Laura Manconi, Paola Denisio, Emma De Nicola, Smail Djennadi Reza Karimi, Mattia Giubilei and the friends of ChiamaMilano who helped us during the casting.
Lately the Iranian Regime has stopped more than one thousand and five hundred Afghan fuel trucks in their borders when they were transiting to Afghanistan.
This has caused the rapid rise in the cost of fuel in this cold winter in Afghanistan while millions of people are dying of hunger and coldness.
The Iranian Regime would not suffice only to training and supplying the Taliban with weapons for destruction of Afghanistan, but also they kill the Afghan refugees who are in the search of sanctuaries in Iran. The IRI Regime would also torture even the children of those refugees who sought for sanctuaries in Iran.
Here is a short film by a keen-eyed young Afghan (Hazara) filmmaker on how life passes for the children of Afghan refugees in Iran, the generation that has a gloom future in front of them in Iran.
The director is Mohammad Reza Sahibdaad who is now residing in France.
Deedenow Cinema will post M. Reza Sahibdaad’s other works in the future.
It is worth to vote for a documentary done by a new talent female Hazara Filmmaker who tries to give a different identity for her gender.
Mona Haidari, a 21 year old, Hazara filmmaker who participated in Atelier Varan documentary workshops in Kabul has made this documentary.
The documentary is about a young woman, who first became a quite famous singer through a music competition show on TV who then runs for politics, in the land of contrasts, where the women are imprisoned in the cages of ignorance by men.
On this land, when a girl is born in a family it is considered mistreatment of the nature, and then, when a girl becomes an artist, she is considered to be against the culture.
To break this taboo against the women, it is helpful to encourage the young female filmmakers who try to depict the lives of those women taking parts in struggles for their rights and bringing changes to the lives of other women.
Voting this documentary would be an encouragement to the filmmaker to reflect more and more women’s voices in her future works.
Mohammad Khadem Haidari on the set of 'Reame del nulla' 2009 Italy
Lately we heard that famous Afghan filmmaker Mohammad Khadem Haidari is mournful for the sudden death of his elder brother in a car accident in Iran, hence Deedenow Cinema Production Afghanistan submits cordial condolences to Mr. Haidari and his family members.
Losing a dear person is a big sorrow, a never-forgetting burden on one’s heart, thus accepting the fact that death is an irrefutable path that every one has to follow earlier or later, can give a bit of peace and patience to the mournful family.
We hope this sorrow as a sear on his heart, would not affect Mohammad Khadem Haidari’s efforts in his filmmaking activities which has made a remarkable contribution to the Emerging Afghan Cinema of the new era.
Mohammad Khadem Haidari’s profile
Mohammad Khadem Haidari as a diamond under the ash has always tried to keep low profile and do great things off screen –behind the scenes without thinking about fame and positions but only and only cinema and the art of how to reflect a thought or an emotion through images.
Haidari has studied cinema in Baagh e Ferdaus, a cinema faculty in a Teheran University in Iran then has worked as a filmmaker and television producer in Kabul from 2002 -2006 when he has contributed to many successful film projects in Afghanistan.
In addition to making films in this period, he has worked for production of youth programs in RTA Afghanistan National Television in Kabul and Bamyan.
After four fruitful years of filmmaking, he was forced to immigrate to Italy due to security problems he had in 2006 in Afghanistan.
Here in Italy, in addition to documentaries he has made, he has a short and two feature films in his carrier which were all screened in Venice Film Festival 2008, 2009 and 2010.
Mohammad Khadem Haidari’s Filmography
Short films
Shabnam 10’ (2003 Afghanistan)
Maama (2005 Afghanistan)
The Venetian Girl 10’ (2007 Italy)
As Cinematographer
Yalda 70’ (2004 Afghanistan)
Baam e Donya documentary series on Bamyan (2005 Afghanistan)
Drought in Badakhshan (2004- 2005 Afghanistan)
Assistant Director
Spring of Hope 120’ (2006 Afghanistan, India)
Assistant set and costume
Osama 83’ (2003 Afghanistan, Japan, Ireland, the Netherlands, Iran)
Winner of Camera D’oro Cannes 2004, Winner of "Golden Globe Best Foreign Language Film" - Afghanistan
‘Once there was a time, when there was love but against it there was a reaction of hate, there was the hand of friendship but against it there was the gun of enmity. There were struggles of men versus the hands of fate on the waves of life. There were only good memories left in front of hard times with harsh truths. There was thirst for power but there was still trend for forgiveness. There was darkness of disappointment but on the other side there was still hope for the brightness of the dawn. There were wails while there was still laughter. There was war and there was peace. There were massacres and there were survivors.
But once the time changed and cruelty took over and fear began ruling on everyone’s heart. Love was replaced by hate. Nothing was seen but redness of blood, bloods of weak human beings shed by the fiercer ones of the same kind. It was then time when love, and humanity were both taken away by the wind of time, instead darkness was covering everyone’s eyes. The little boys became grown men in overnight to pick up guns and kill proudly mankind of the hostiles when hostility was expanding day by day and people went to slavery; in such a situation cruelty had no limits!
In the twilight time it was hard to distinguish cries of men from the howls of wolves. There was only thirst for blood and there was passion for revenge and it continued generation to generation until one man came to save his nation breaking the chains of slavery and tearing the ropes of Juwalis and again the sign of hope began to blink in the eyes of millions of people.’
It all happened in the era when being Hazara was a crime on a land today called Afghanistan and I brought all of it in a wonderful novel.
***
Finally these days I am sighing for having finished the first step of work; my novel is completed and is now the time to talk with a good publisher/distributor.
Completing a fiction work in a second language has never been easy for me, however nowadays after two long years of hard work I am more and more convinced to believe in success when there is faith, strong motivation, determination and self-confidence behind even a very difficult work.
I began writing the first lines of my novel in January 2008 since the basic idea was bred in my mind, but then I quit writing it for I was blogging, studying and working to afford my life expenses.
In early 2009 I found a job in a bookstore ‘as a librarian’ when I was attracted towards literature, and then in the same year while studying cinema and I could not fund my short films, it was when broken heart I was really determined first to complete my novel. Since then I tried to allocate the little spare time I had to write and wrote it bit by bit and then there was no more time for my blogs and it cost me my silence in blogging thereafter.
In spite of all its hardships with a second language when it is not one’s first one, I was familiar with English for about ten years; two years of studying, three years of teaching experience and more than three years of translation experience and writing several essays in English had all helped me advance my English level to be able to write a novel, of course it may not be the same level of a native English writer as I was not born and raised in an English speaking country, but still I did my best.
***
As the title of the novel is not finalized, neither the publisher is specified yet, I wouldn’t say much about the outline, rather I would only say what kind of book it is and why it is worth mentioning about it here and now in advance –before it is published.
First I should thank Khaled Husseini who with his “The Kite Runner” broke the long-time taboo of talking about prohibited issues, hidden truths and untold stories in Afghanistan that were for long considered as ‘against “the fake” fragile national unity’, and he opened the way for the other emerging authors on stories of such kind.
My novel completes what Khaled Husseini had not reached to, in his novel “The Kite Runner”.
“The Kite Runner” with all its success, had just touched roughly a part of the existing harsh realities in the country but not uncovered it fully and many questions remained unanswered while in mine one I crossed the red-line borders and depicted all those untouched issues for my readers; the hidden layers of the long Hazara- Pashtoon conflicts in Afghanistan based on the existing and historical realities.
In a short saying my novel is a more completed and a more- in-depth version of Khaled Husseini’s and the good point is that; it is written by a Hazara Author, a remainder of the historical mass massacre of the Hazaras in Afghanistan thus it has its originality! It is written in a first person protagonist and in English of course.
You will read how a mass massacre and slavery affected the lives of four generations of a minor ethnic ‘the Hazaras’ through passage of time in Afghanistan and how a man struggles first to survive and then stand to save his nation.
Afghanistan is still the land of contrasts and you can find different images - in -contrast in this country and it is worth knowing a country more thoroughly by a good novel.
My work is a novel, a fiction work, partly inspired by the lives of real people but is built up and mixed with fantasy elements, imaginations and is nourished by the help of historical facts, evidences and existing realities in our society.
By reading my novel ‘that doesn’t have a definite title yet’, you will be traveling to the real Afghanistan through forty years of life of the protagonist, sixty years of lives of his forefathers and will be feeling yourself a part of it, a part of the history of humanity on a part of the globe which is on the top of headlines of media of the world again these days.’
With this novel, I let you see the world through Chinese-like little eyes of a Hazara.
The story begins in Afghanistan of 1960s and flashbacks to 1920s and then comes back and continues until 1990s all in Afghanistan. Then Pakistan is the location and then Italy and finally another ImaginaryLand and then finishes back in Afghanistan of 2014 with a happy ending.
It is to add that, this novel is a strong potential for adoption into a major motion picture.
***
If you follow my blogs and my Face Book postings, you will know about it more, the soon there will be accords on its publication and distribution dates.
If you have read ‘The Kite Runner’ and liked it, I should say, definitely reading this one is a must!
The USA, Canada, the UK and Australia will be the first four countries my novel will be distributed in.
A young Afghan of being born in the early 1980s of dictatorship time in Afghanistan, belonging to a generation with many responsibilities on shoulders, having faced with many unjust treatments and social inequalities in the country but still is full of energy, eager to learn as many new things as possible, looking for a nice and just world, always expecting the next day better then the previous one, and believing in possibility of anything to do when a person really wants. After high school studied theatre and cinema for two years in fine arts faculty of Kabul University. Along with university studies, participated in several film and video production courses and workshops, have worked for some Afghan film productions as well as for ATN and Farda Radio in Kabul, and finally established Deedenow Cinema to be able to work more independently but due to serious security risks couldn’t continue working within Afghanistan but still thinks and works for Afghanistan from where ever possible. Should be added that lately got interested in politics as well as in literature along with cinema and film making affairs. Will appreciate your comments and supports of any kind for his activities
