The Prince of Nothingwood (2017)

Dir.: Sonia Kronlund; Documentary with Salim Shaheen; France/Germany 2017, 85 min.

In her first full length documentary feature, Sonia Kronlund captures the desperate atmosphere in Afghanistan where its most prolific filmmaker, Salim Shaheen struggles to create no-budget movies in this war torn country –  110 so far – and he’s still only in his fifties.

Best known for her work in French television, Kronlund has an in-depth knowledge of Afghanistan and is highly aware of the dangers in following Shaheen on his trip to the mountain region of Bamiyan, where he is going to shoot number 111 of his oeuvre: filming with take place in a safe area, they still need security guards.

Shaheen emerges a fiesty character and a film maniac: as a child he sneaked into the local cinema whence he was sent packing, and punished when he got home. He made his first short films in his mid teens. His brother lost his life in the Soviet invasion of 1980, and forced Shaheen to flee to Iran. Two years later, he joined the Afghan army and was lucky to survive, playing dead during an attack. A year after demobilisation, he married his first wife in 1984 and acquires a VHS camera, directing his first feature The Undefeated. With support from friends and family members in the cast and crew, Shaheen Films was born in 1892, as the Soviet Army was retreating. A decade late he opened a makeshift cinema in his basement. But the 1993  Civil War hampers his film projects: Whilst shooting Gardab, a rocket killed ten of his crew, the director had a narrow escape. With the Taliban is hot on his heels, he continues his filmmaking, but they still burn many of his features. Eventually fleeing to Pakistan, he made a living as an actor, but once again returns to his homeland in 2001, after the Taliban’s fall, undefeated and undefaticable – producing about ten films a year; slowing down to “only’ five features a year from 2009. 

There is a role-play going on between Kronlund and Shaheen: he is the great male leader, she is the very frightened woman, asking for his macho protection. But there are limits even for Shaheen: Kronlund never gets to interview the director’s two wives, or his daughters: they are kept away from the camera. The film’s title is a quote by Shaheen: ‘not Hollywood, not Bollywood just Nothingwood’. And he really makes films out of nothing for a severely curtailed home market, because there are only four functional cinemas left in Kabul. Kronlund’s portrait of Shaheen runs parallel to the war, which has never left the country. Even when shooting in Bamiyan, they discover the Taliban has destroyed the Buddha relics. Shaheen has to be a emotionally resourceful, often masquerading as a clown for the benefits of authorities, flighting to survive and create in this sad, impoverished country. AS