Torbaaz director Girish Malik: The mayhem in Afghanistan is heartbreaking

Having shot parts of his film Torbaaz (2020) in Afganistan and around its border, filmmaker Girish Malik is gutted with the present situation in the country.

“We may not have shot with actors in Afghanistan but we did shoot backgrounds in the country because the story was set in Afghanistan. We shot in the borders of Afghanistan and in Kyrgyzstan and worked with around 500 native Afghani people during the making of the film,” shares Malik.

Talking about his experience of working with the locals, he says how the people there form an instant connect with Hindi film industry.

“The moment you meet any Afghani person, you form an immediate connect. They love Bollywood, they love Indian food, everything about India. I asked a lot of people who worked with me at that time about their opinion about India and they told me that when they look at India, they we feel safe. Every Afghani’s dream is to visit India.They feel very secure with us,” adds the filmmaker.

The story of the film, which starred Sanjay Dutt, was set in war-torn Afghanistan about a coach who decides to coach refugee camp kids in cricket, despite opposition from a militant leader, who wants to recruit the kids as suicide bombers.

“Having been there for my film and now seeing what is unfolding, is just heartbreaking. The mayhem is heartbreaking. But when you meet the people there or the refuges, they will tell you that this turmoil has been happening for the last 40 years. Afghanistan has been bleeding forever; so many lives have been lost. It is a great suffering that the country has gone through and continues to,” he laments.

With hope and prayer in his heart, Malik wants normalcy to resume soon so that the cinematic relations between the two countries can continue, after all he says that Afghanistan is a filmmakers paradise.

“No one can deny the raw beauty which the country has. Cinematically every filmmaker will be always very keen to shoot there. It is a hub for stories for sure because not just landscapes, there are so many stories that you can explore as a filmmaker. It is a hidden, mystical place which excites every filmmaker. I just hope that this is not the end of India and Afghanistan film relations,” he ends.