Yet another Luxembourg co-production will be making an appearance at the Cannes Film Festival, this time in the form of Shahrbanoo Sadat's "The Orphanage".
The "Quinzaine des Réalisateurs" (Directors’ Fortnight), has selected "The Orphanage" (Parwareshgah), the second part of Shahrbanoo Sadat’s pentalogy, as one of the feature films it will be showing this year. The Afghan filmmaker's first feature film "Wolf and Sheep", the first of a total of five films planned, screened at the sidebar in 2016 and was awarded with the main prize. The pentalogy is based on an unpublished autobiography by Shahrbanoo’s friend, Anwar Hashimi.
The film is based on Anwar’s memories in a Kabul orphanage in Afghanistan in the 1980s, when the country was under pro-Soviet rule. The teenager Qodrat goes from his life on the streets of Kabul to a Soviet orphanage, where he lives until the Mujahideen violently overtake the country and incite the civil war. The film also features musical elements inspired by the Bollywood films from the time, which were screened in Afghan cinemas.
The film was produced by Katja Adomeit for Adomeit Film in Denmark, co-produced by Adomeit Film in Germany, La Fabrica Nocturna Cinéma in France, Samsa Film in Luxembourg and Wolf Pictures in Afghanistan. It was funded by Film Fund Luxembourg, Eurimages-Council of Europe, Arri-International Support Program, Copenhagen Film Fund, the Danish Filminstitute, Cinema Du Monde, Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, World Cinema Fund, TorinoFilmLab, Cinereach, Creative Europe MEDIA, Hubert Bals and the Asian Cinema Fund.
