When Pomegranates Howl

When Pomegranates Howl (2021)

Vaght-e Chigh-e Anar

A rich new work from the streets of Kabul

Shot on the streets of Kabul, Granaz Moussavi’s (My Tehran For Sale) outstanding new feature is in the tradition of the great child-centred works of the 1980s when filmmakers such as Kiarostami, Panahi and Amir Naderi (to whom this film is dedicated) were putting Iranian cinema in the forefront of world production. 9-year-old Hewad is an irrepressible, street-smart kid who is energetically working every angle, hustling everything from pomegranate juice to amulets to protection from the evil eye. His real ambition is to be a movie star, and this comes a step closer when he meets an Australian photographer. But in a city where every family has a member who has been “martyred,” the streets are as perilous as they are vivid. Australia’s recent involvement with Afghanistan has been mixed, to say the best. The deeply-felt humanism of this film might just be our most effective contribution to that troubled country.

Date of release
2021-11-18
TMDB
6.8 / 10 (4)
Runtime
1h 23m
Genres
War, Drama
Director
Granaz Moussavi

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 0 · Nominations: 1

When Pomegranates Howl is a 2020 Afghan-Australian drama film written and directed by Iranian-born Australian filmmaker Granaz Moussavi. The film was partly funded through Adelaide Film Festival, which became its premiere place. It was selected as the Australian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards.

Production and filming

Granaz Moussavi started filming When Pomegranates Howl in Kabul in 2017 after reading Australian headlines of an attack by the Australian armed forces in which two boys - 11 and 12-year-olds were killed. This sad news prompted the director to write a script about a (back then) nine-year-old boy named Hewad.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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