Archive Cinema City 2009.

Kabuli Kid

L'enfant de Kaboul / Kabuli Kid

Genre: Drama
Country: France / Afghanistan
Year: 2008.
Duration: 94 min

Director: Barmak Akram
Scenario: Barmak Akram

Cast: Hadji Gul, Valery Shatz, Amelie Glenn, Mohammad Chafi Sahel, Helena Alam, Messi Gul

Programme selection: Exit Point

Synopsis:
Kabul - a city struggling to recover from 25 years of warfare. Taxi driver Khaled (Hadji Gul) picks up a woman and baby. Her face is hidden behind a blue burqa. They settle on a price, she pays him and they drive off. The taxi arrives at its destination. The woman gets out and a new passenger climbs in... to find the baby still in the backseat. Khaled leaps out after the woman but she's vanished. He's left holding the baby - a 6-month-old boy.

Director's statement: "25 years of war have thrown more than 50.000 children - orphans or with poverty-stricken families - onto the streets of Kabul. So many children confronted daily with hunger, disease, violence, drugs, prostitution and slavery. Gatherers of paper and tin cans, sellers of eggs and toilet paper, water carriers, cart pullers, shoe shines, these children - often without parents or schooling - grow up on the streets. This is the subject of my film."

Official site

Trailer

Nominations:
Best Film, 2008 Flanders International Film Festival


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