It is only cinema’s greats who can move you to both laugh out loud and choke back tears, and still be deeply political, in the same film. Shahrbanoo Sadat’s achingly moving film Parwareshgah (The Orphanage, in Dari, Russian and Hindi, made by the Afghan director), is one of contemporary cinema’s greats. Parwareshgah, that was at the Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight in 2019, and also backed by the Berlin Film Festival’s World Cinema Fund, was shown to Indian/online audiences last week.

It is a compelling coming-of-age film, and sombre reflection on the fall of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1989 and takeover by the mujahideen, from the viewpoints of teenagers in an Afghan orphanage. Yet, it is also a joyous Afghan tribute to Bollywood and friendship, showing how deeply Bollywood is embedded in the daydreams, joys and sorrows of ordinary Afghans, with delightfully used songs from Sholay, Shahenshah, Muqaddar ka Sikandar and more. You appreciate the herculean efforts of a woman filmmaker in Islamic Afghanistan (with her own production company Wolf Pictures), along with German woman producer Katja Adomeit, in making a film that is a Denmark-France-Germany-Luxembourg-Afghanistan co-production, and filmed in Tajikistan, Denmark and Germany. Mind-boggling, yet the film holds resolutely to its core.