STREET-LEVEL CINEMA
Close-up look at Afghan culture
If you see one movie at this year's Festival des films du monde (FFM), make it Mina Walking.
The Afghan-Canadian co-production, by former Montrealer Yosef Baraki, is a bold, cinematically rich look at Afghan life from the point of view of a 12-year-old girl forced to sell trinkets on the street to support her derelict father and ill grandfather.
Mina Walking had its première at the Berlin International Film Festival in February, marking the arrival of an audacious Canadian filmmaker with a unique vision and stirring sense of adventure.
And it is a rare success story for the FFM, which gave the Norman McLaren Award for best student film to Baraki's 2013 short Der Kandidat. That came with a $5,000 prize, which the budding director used to purchase the Canon 5D camera with which he shot this film, his feature debut.
Born in Kabul to an Afghan father and Czech mother, Baraki immigrated with his family, first to Europe and then, in 1998, to Montreal. They lived in Montreal North for five years, and it was here that the director, now 25, had the first inkling of his professional aspirations.
“I remember the moment, when I was 12 and I told myself, 'This is what you're going to do.' I guess if I had to analyze it, we moved a lot from country to country, house to house. I didn't have a lot of social life. Every time I met people, we moved. So I had to protect myself and invent a life of my own. Movies were the answer to that.”
Baraki studied film briefly at York University, where he dropped out in his first year, and then at Humber College, where he thrived with the school's more hands-on approach.
When he began pondering his first feature, he looked to his homeland. He went to visit his father, who now lives in Afghanistan, working in ... “umm, how am I going to put this?” Baraki said. “It's sensitive. He works with NATO, let's say.”
Knowing he wanted to make a film about Afghan culture, the director's attention was captured by a group of kids selling things on the streets of Kabul.
“These street children have to work for their parents, or to support themselves if they're orphaned,” Baraki said. “They would hang around the government offices, because they know that people with money work there. As soon as someone walks by, they hound them and offer whatever they have — a scarf, a World Cup statue made of plastic.”
Two young girls in particular drew his attention.
“They were 10 or 11, with their two older brothers, who were in their 20s. They were always there, willing to talk and help out. A lot of them appear in the final version of the film. It started when I spent time with them, looking for an 'in' to the culture. I had been away for so long, I needed someone to help mediate my way back into it.”
The character of Mina is largely based on the two sisters and what Baraki saw and was told, by them, of their lives. He was especially struck that these young girls appeared to sell more and be more intrepid than their elder siblings.
When he went hunting for his lead actress, he knew he had to find a protagonist with as much spunk as his research subjects. He found what he was looking for in Farzana Nawabi, whom he first met via Skype.
“I was in Canada, she was in Kabul,” Baraki said. “I had had brief conversations with three to four other girls. From the first moment we interacted, she was very different, like the character I envisioned. She was open, talkative; most of all, she would talk back a lot and challenge me, which was like my vision of Mina as a young warrior.”
Nawabi won the best-actress award for her performance at both the Zlin Film Festival in the Czech Republic (where Mina Walking won an honorary prize from the Ecumenical Jury) and the SAARC Film Festival in Sri Lanka.
The film also garnered Baraki the Lindalee Tracey Award for an emerging Canadian filmmaker at this year's Hot Docs festival in Toronto, although it is not a documentary and was not screened at the festival. (The prize is open to all Canadian directors.)
Baraki admits to taking a documentary approach to film, inspired by his idols the Dardenne brothers.
“I love everything they do,” he said, “their observation of the working class. I enjoy (their portrayal of ) realness through people doing things, instead of being forced by a plot to entertain. I respond very strongly to their films.”
He used a similar approach in Mina Walking, focusing on the details in the daily life of the main character. Scenes were shot on the fly, based on a rough treatment that left ample room for improvising, both by his actors and himself.
“I knew if I wrote a full script, it wasn't going to be as good as what I found on the street,” he said. “Every day, we would get in the van and travel to locations. I'd scout what was possible and try to be in the moment. I have such a hard time making decisions — I over-think everything. This was an experiment to force myself to make quick decisions.”
His goal was to offer an upclose and glamour-free glimpse of Afghan reality.
“I never wanted to make Mina a hero, or someone who triumphs at the end,” Baraki said. “It was never my intention to glorify her. I wanted the viewer to experience life, and see the small details of the culture. I wanted to transport the audience into Kabul and get a sense of what it is like now, today.”
I wanted the viewer to experience life, and to see the small details of the culture. I wanted to transport the audience into Kabul.