'Rediscovered Homeland’ is the title of a 30-minute film initiated by the Society for the Preservation of Afghanistan’s Cultural Heritage (SPACH). A docu-drama, it tells the story of a young girl who visits 10 archeological sites and monuments with a friendly magician. The target audience comprises children, returnees who know little or nothing about their heritage and those who have never travelled outside their respective province or read any books about Afghanistan’s history.

Written in Dari, dubbed in Pashtu and subtitled in English, the film should have a wide market. It is a co-production in which SPACH conceived the original idea and acted as co-ordinator and fundraiser for the project, Afghan Film provided the scriptwriters (Wahid Ramaq and Siddiqullah Barmak) and production team and AÏNA undertook the editing and distribution. Funds for the initial filming of US$25,000 were donated by the Netherlands Embassy. The distribution budget of US$9,165 includes nine mobile cinemas supplied by AÏNA which are estimated to reach one million people in one week touring the Kabul schools and then travelling in the countryside. The film will also be shown on Afghan television, to those still in refugee camps in Pakistan and - with the assistance of possibly UNICEF or CARITAS, both NGOs supporting education - to schools in the provinces.

The film has three aims: (i) to educate people about the greatness and uniqueness of Afghanistan’s cultural heritage; (ii) to teach people about dangers such as fundamentalism in the light of what happened to the Bamyan Buddhas, the greed of looters and the deterioration of national monuments as a result of neglect; and (iii) to spread a message of hope by showing what has been achieved in the restoration of Babur’s Garden in Kabul and the Tile Workshop in Herat (see tile making).

The government film company Afghan Film was chosen for its high level of technical skill, however the requirements of the film script created a new challenge for Afghan filmmakers – making an accurate documentary with a creative story line that would appeal to young people. The academic information contained in the first draft of the script was too dry for young audiences and the fables and folk tales added subsequently by the creative writer to generate interest were marred by historically inaccuracies. At this point SPACH requested Siddiqullah Barmak to rewrite the script to ensure accuracy but also maintain an interesting storyline.

Permission was requested from the then Ministry of Information and Culture and letters were written to the governors of each province introducing the film crew and requesting their assistance.

Scheduled to start in mid December 2002 and be ready for viewing in six weeks, two unfortunate incidents occurred which delayed the project until April 2003. A terrorist attack on AÏNA left one staff member dead and Eric Coorevitz, co-ordinator of the project, severely wounded. He was evacuated immediately but his replacement was not hired for a further month. The scriptwriting was again delayed when Siddiqullah Barmak left for one month to honour a prior commitment. Spring weather also contributed to the delay in the schedule when flooding closed the roads to Bamyan for several days.

Afghan Film does not have a dedicated management department to co-ordinate activities and this created numerous practical difficulties. On one occasion the lack of organisation resulted in the co-ordinator for the film, who was responsible for maintaining the historical accuracy of the filming, being left behind when the film crew went to the provinces.

A recurring problem was the inability of the film crew to understand the accuracy required by SPACH. Artists and directors from the film company tended to make arbitrary decisions in the field based on their own ideas about art and creativity, while SPACH insisted on accurate portrayals of the sites and the use of authentic costumes indigenous to the regions being filmed. The urge to show a storybook version of country life would only have cemented stereotypes and was not what was intended. Although the final result was not as high standard as planned and thus not to the complete satisfaction of SPACH, the film was finished in time for AÏNA’s Summer 2003 touring film caravan.

Satellite phones were supplied in case of emergency but weren’t needed. There was one shooting incident in Jalalabad involving local militia, but luckily no one was hurt and this proved to be the only such incident of its kind during the entire production period. AÏNA believe that the Jalalabad incident was caused by local looters who were displeased when they discovered the film crew in their area.

After seven edits in which SPACH offered suggestions and its founder Nancy Hatch Dupree checked accuracy, the film was finally ready. It is the first of its kind in Afghanistan, comprising a complicated blend of both scholarly academia and a storyline that will interest children. The addition of a magician and a ‘bad guy’, both famous actors, added to the story, enabling the audience to relate to the little girl, Ariana, and her sense of wonder while flying across the country.

AÏNA took this and five other films to 30 of Afghanistan’s 32 provinces with nine mobile units or caravans in the summer of 2003.

Awareness of a people’s heritage instills pride and the broader message of tolerance will help the peace process. With its depiction of no fewer than 10 heritage sites from around the country, the film offers personal interest for everyone as they see their daily landscapes on the screen.

The next step in promoting the protection of Afghanistan’s cultural heritage to ensure the effective dissemination of this film and to create other films about individual monuments or archeological sites in Afghanistan. SPACH hopes to persuade senior Afghan scholars to write the scripts to films which relate to their particular areas of expertise, including the history of specific sites and various important heritage issues. These films will be shorter, possibly of around 10 minutes’ duration, and will be shown on television to a potential audience of four million people.