Film Director Gets Early Start

Jawanmard Paeez is hardly your typical film director. For one thing, he is only seven years old.



Dressed in a red coat and blue jeans, he sat beside his father, actor Humayun Paeez, in the offices of Afghan Film, talking easily and expansively about his career in films.



“I had my first role when I was two-and-a-half,” he told IWPR, describing his part in “Almaz-e-Sharq” (“Diamond of the East”), where he played one of a gang of children throwing stones at a beggar. In his second film, “Khak wa Khakistar” (“Dust and Ashes”) he played a small boy who became deaf when a rocket attack destroyed his house.



His directorial debut came late last year with a seven-minute film called “Bad” (which means the same as the English word) about a young boy who does not listen to his parents.



The reviews have been positive, at least from his colleagues in the film industry.



“Jawanmard’s talent is unique, it is a gift from God,” said Engineer Abdul Latif Ahmadi, head of the Afghan Film studio. “If he gets support, he will be a world-class director. He will be brilliant.”



Cameraman Najibullah Ahmadi, 22, worked with the young director on “Bad”. “Jawanmard has a remarkable talent,” he told IWPR. “I have not had such an easy time with any other director.”



Actress Breshna Bahar, 36, played the lead in the film. She confirmed Jawanmard’s abilities as a director.



“In one scene I was slicing an onion, and tears were running down my face. I wanted to use my scarf to wipe them away, but Jawanmard stopped the camera, and told me angrily to use the back of my hand, as the scene had to be natural,” she said.



Jawanmard showed a talent for directing from the start, according to his father.



“When he was doing ‘Dust and Ashes’ I saw that when he was not in shooting, he was making up his own scenes and imitating the director,” said Humayun. “After that, colleagues kept asking him to make a role for himself and direct it. Jawanmard did it so quickly that everyone was surprised. They all encouraged him.”



When he is not busy with movie-making, Jawanmard is a typical seven-year-old. He takes English classes, goes to the mosque every morning to learn the Koran, and then attends school. He also likes to play football and play hide-and-seek with other children, and is a master at snowball fights.



He said he likes educational films and wants to make his own one day.



“I don’t like romantic films, or films where there is a lot of violence,” he said.



Some of Jawanmard’s colleagues are not so positive about the attention being heaped on the boy.



“Jawanmard is clever, yes, but we should not encourage him too much,” said Mohammad Seddiq Barmak, a prominent Afghan film director. “He will think that he has already reached his highest point and he will not grow as a director.”



Ahad Zhewand, a long-time film director, dismisses Jawanmard as an insult to Afghan cinema.



“This is a joke, but it’s not funny,” he said. “Directing needs life experience. How can someone who can’t read and write compose a scenario?”



Jawanmard, who has now finished third grade in school, said that he dictates his scenario to his older sister and she writes it down for him.



He is unruffled by the criticism, saying, “Those who say that Afghan film is insulted because a small boy has made a film – I just tell them to watch my movie once, and then pass judgement.”



Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.