BARRETT: I understand you cast nonprofessional actors from orphanages and refugee camps. Why did you do that? BARMAK: Because this is a true story, written by me. I wanted to make a natural, realistic film. I worked with them on improvisation. I didn’t tell them the whole story, to make them surprised.
How did you choose Marina Golbahari, a street beggar, to play the main character? I was walking around and I searched among 3,400 to 3,500 girls. I met Marina accidentally just four days before the shooting, so you can imagine, she was so amazing. I was just struck when I saw her. I thought she was the face I really needed in the film. Then I asked her some questions, and I realized how close she was to this character. Her life was so similar. Her father was arrested by the Taliban many times, and her brother was the only member of the family left to feed the family so she was out begging. She was scared to be in the streets because it was forbidden for the girls to be in the street.
Why did you call her character–and the movie–Osama? I wanted to find a good title which would cover all my feelings and ideas. And I found it inside the film. In one sequence, when the noisy boys in the street are following her, they are calling after her that she’s a girl. There’s a little boy who is going to protect her. They ask if she is a boy, what is his name? He tells them Osama, because he thinks it will create a scare and they will release her. Also, my film is about horror, and I thought: who is behind this? Osama bin Laden. Under the pressure of this name, our people lost their culture, their personal and national identities.
You went into exile in Pakistan when the Taliban gained power, but returned after the regime fell. What was that return like? How had things changed in your country? It was a fantastic moment for me when I returned to Kabul. Snow was falling. But I found underneath that Kabul was destroyed–more than the destruction of the city, but the mentality of the people, too. People I know [in the film industry] were now working as taxi drivers or secondhand-merchandise sellers on the corner of the streets, food sellers. These people, they lost themselves. It was very terrible and sometimes very difficult for me to imagine the rehabilitation of these people and of everything. We were so enthusiastic, though, and we really wanted to do something, to rebuild.
Did you feel a lot of pressure as you made this film because you were dealing with such a sensitive political subject? I said I am simply going to make this film for my people and for other people in the world. It makes me more responsible for others, yes, for my friends–to create for them a possibility for their lives and their own dreams. I think it’s a good beginning for Afghan cinema. Now we have a passion to say something, to introduce our people, our pain and our new cinema to the world.
What role do you think the United States and other allies should play in rebuilding Afghanistan? I think if you want to have an Afghanistan without extremism and to say it should never go back to the previous time [under Taliban rule], we have to do something. Who are these members of Al Qaeda? They are poor people, young guys who never found a passion to realize their dreams. They see no hope. So they make a decision to become a terrorist.
Your film has been hailed abroad. How has it been received in Afghanistan? We had the biggest public screening of this film [there]. Everyone was crying. They were telling me it was like their lives, that they saw the same situations. They tell me similar stories of neighbors and girls they know. One man said he was feeling deeply his own pain. Everybody was moved. They looked in this film and they found themselves.
