THE ORPHANAGE

Kabul, 1989. Fifteen-year-old Qodrat gets by on the street selling forged cinema tickets, until the police catch him and place him in an orphanage run by the Soviets. There he finds beds, lessons and Russian classes, a trip to Moscow, and the hierarchies of the older boys. Outside, the Soviets hold the city while the mujahideen fight for the country, and the order the orphanage promises will not last much longer. Qodrat escapes into daydreams in which he becomes the hero of a Bollywood film, with singing, dancing and fights that he wins. “The Orphanage” (Afghanistan, 2019) is the second feature by Shahrbanoo Sadat.

The film continues Sadat’s debut “Wolf and Sheep” (2016), with the same actor in the role of Qodrat, and like that film is based on the unpublished memoirs of Anwar Hashimi. Historical drama and Bollywood musical interlock. It premiered in 2019 in the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes. “The Orphanage” was shown at Around the World in 14 Films in Berlin in 2019 in the Berlinale World Cinema Fund section.

Shown at the 2019 edition of Around the World in 14 Films.

All films 2019 · Film Archive