An unfinished story

Filmmaker Jennifer Alphonse and cinematographer Sajeesh Rajendran talk about their experience shooting ‘Habeeb’ in Afghanisthan in 2016, a project they still haven’t completed
An unfinished story

KOCHI: In the chilly winter of December 2016, filmmaker Jennifer Alphonse and cinematographer Sajeesh Rajendran arrived in Afghanistan to shoot their dream project ‘Habeeb’. Little did they know that the country was plunging into chaos and the team which was touted to be the first south Indian film crew to shoot in Afghanistan will have to return after 25 days of shooting. Now, they have waited for five years to return to Afghanistan and complete their project, which seems unlikely now. 

Recently they released a music video on the film which centres around the search of an army officer for his missing son. The video carries hope and prayers for the country to return to normalcy. Director Jennifer Alphonse came out with the script for ‘Habeeb’ after years of hard work. The song of the movie, though composed by Jaya Phani Krishna, was sung by Afghani singer Qais Ulfat. Elaborating her experiences, the Hyderabad-based independent filmmaker says that the film produced by Afghan and Indian producers Habeeb Safi and Koti Rao respectively explored the Indian terrain and Afghan locality.

“Our crew included more than 15 Afghani artists and technicians who helped us shoot the scenes at Kabul, Jalalabad and Panjshir. I am still in touch with them. The response for the video song was overwhelming,” she says. “Perhaps, I will be the only Asian woman filmmaker to shoot there till date. The Afghanis have a special love and respect for Indians. The support of Afghan police was the reason that made us shoot passionately amidst death threats, the freezing climate of almost -14 temperature and militant attacks,’’ she adds.

Award-winning cinematographer Sajeesh Rajendran fell in love with Afghanistan throughout the project. “Afghanis are real fighters. History shows their resistance even in hard times. We are not sure if we will ever get to complete the film or not, but with the music video, we wanted to share the once-in-a-lifetime experience of shooting in a war-torn country,” adds Sajeesh, who edited the music video.

Their schedules turned stressful as the shooting permit was from 10.30am to 5.30pm only. The twin bombing near the Afghan parliament in Kabul by Taliban militants in January 2017 that look many lives, forced the team to fly back. “We were shooting near the blast spot till the previous day. Some suggested wearing beards as an ‘escape’ from militant attack. But one day, we skipped this ritual and shot at the bird market, which was a highly sensitive spot — something we were unaware of. We hid the camera to capture the natural crowd scene. One of our men had dressed in a burqa because we couldn’t find a woman to play the part. We were caught by Afghan police for our ‘disguised act’ as men with beards are highly prone to suspicion in Afghanistan, which we discovered later. We were handcuffed and put behind the bars for one day. They released us after we cleared the misunderstanding,” remembers Sajeesh.

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