'Kandahar' star documents trip home
Mar. 18, 2003
By Etan Vlessing
Even though cinematic fortune has smiled twice on Pazira
in recent years, she insists the place for happily-ever-afters is only in
Hollywood.
"There aren't any happy endings in Afghanistan," she sighs.
Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf's "Kandahar," which
stars Pazira and caused a sensation at the 2001 Cannes film festival, is
a fictional account of Pazira's journey to Afghanistan to find a childhood
friend, Dyana. The film is inspired by an actual event: Dyana was indeed
a friend of Pazira's who, in 1998, sent a letter to the actress/filmmaker
in which she suggested she could no longer live under the Taliban and might
kill herself.
Pazira, who fled Kabul with her family in 1989 and settled
in Canada, recalls her acting debut in "Kandahar" as a trial, and the red
carpet entrance in Cannes for its world premiere as unbearable.
"The joke is, in Cannes I learned how to fake a smile," she recalls.
The reality was that even though Makhmalbaf's film was receiving acclaim, Pazira was still no closer to rescuing Dyana.
That possibility came with the collapse of Taliban rule
in December 2001. Only months later, Toronto-based documentary maker Jay,
backed by financing from the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., agreed to shoot
Pazira's journey to Kandahar to find Dyana.
"We were all hoping for a happy ending, (but) Niloufar was bracing for the worst," Jay recalls.
The result is "Return to Kandahar," a deeply moving feature-length documentary set to bow on the CBC on March 27.
The documentary marks Pazira's actual return to Afghanistan
in July 2002. (Makhmalbaf's "Kandahar" was shot mostly in a refugee camp
near the Iranian-Afghan border. She never did set foot in her homeland.)
But with Jay and cameraman Martin Duckworth in tow, Pazira
traveled to rubble-strewn Kabul, Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif in her search
for Dyana. Though Jay reports that "everyone was on their best behavior,"
including local warlords, the trip stirred up troubling memories for Pazira.
Ultimately, "Return to Kandahar" offers neither a happy
ending to Pazira's quest nor to Afghanistan's woes. The viewer sees no simple
case of a wrong set right, as many in the West have been led to believe with
the overthrow of the Taliban.
Pazira's fear is, for all the media coverage of Afghanistan
since the events of Sept. 11, that western journalists and their audiences
know little, if anything, about her native country.
"I hope people will know Kandahar for what it is. The Kandahar
represented in the media is inaccurate," she insists. U.S. tanks rolling
into Kabul and flying the flag in victory may have looked impressive on CNN.
But, according to Pazira, ruthless warlords still rule much of Afghanistan.
For despite all its past struggles, Pazira believes the true fight for freedom in Afghanistan is just beginning.