Neelofer Shama is the first woman to go to Afghanistan and shoot a full feature film. She spoke to Iknoor Kaur about how she received midnight threats and was once asked to stop speaking in order to avoid a backlash
For Neelofer Shama, it was no big deal — standing on a piece of land prone to non-stop missile bombings, watching militants firing in mid-air and men looking over her with scornful eyes. She had spent her life traversing through the troubled paths of North East India and had suffered the militancy rule in Kashmir before she was headed to the land that resonated fear in the minds of women. Filmmaking took her places and Afghanistan was just another petal in the pod ready to shoot surprises at her back-to-back. “As we got off at Kabul we were shocked at our welcome. People immediately recognised us as Indians and stared at us endlessly. There was so much security. At least 200 people surrounded us at all times. I had never imagined that there would be such kind of an intimidating curfew. That was enough for me and my entire team to know that this was not going to be an easy film to make,” said the director of Man’s Desire for Fifth Wife that screened at the International Film Festival of India recently.
Primarily known for her work in Doordarshan, Shama had worked with the Government of Tajikistan three years back on six documentaries. “Once I was done with that work, Sediq Abedi along with his team (Sabruddin Rahmani, Murad Hamidi and Farid Yarash) from Afghanistan approached me and said that the government of Tajikistan had suggested my name to shoot this film for them. He had been to Russia and Turkey in search of a technical team for the film and hadn’t found one. However, I wasn’t ready to go to Afghanistan, but they kept coming again and again. Eventually I did agree and prepared myself for the task against everyone’s wishes. I just thought of one thing, if I have to die, I will die anywhere. So why be scared,” she shared.
After 66 years, this was the first film made in Afghanistan on a 35mm film camera. Shama elaborated, “It explores the life of a zamindar who has four wives and desires a fifth one.” Shooting the film was a big task, she added, “Shooting was not the problem. There was so much security that the scare was always there. Actresses were scared to act because men would frown at them every time they removed their burqa. So, we could never shoot at one place twice. The worst part was that we didn’t know the language, Dari. So we would never understand when we got threats. Every moment felt as though it was our last. At one point I even felt that we will never go back to India again.”
Shama narrated an incident that happened when she was shooting the climax of the film — the game of buzkashi. She said, “I was excited about shooting this scene and we had finally found an area that was big enough to accommodate the frame. There were about 12,000 people there and around 4,000 horses. However, I was occupied with my work and was busy getting the shot in place when I suddenly realised that I was the only woman standing in a salwar kameez, amidst a crowd of 12,000 Afghan men in Taliban territory. Anything could have happened to me then. The men were getting irritated because they couldn’t tolerate a woman being so demanding. Eventually because of that I was asked to keep my voice low in order to avoid agitation.”
Her moment of trial came when “we had to shoot a midnight scene. The scene needed a bonfire to be lit at night and people there objected to the switching on of any lights at night. However, we went ahead with the schedule because it was an important part of the film. Just when we were about to roll the cameras one of the boys there who used to help us on set came to me and said that there could be a bomb blast here any minute. He asked me to leave the area as soon as I could and take my team along with me. At that time I thought, ‘don’t panic’. I just shut the boy up and told myself that I’m the leader of this troupe and I have to make the film irrespective of circumstances. In a place like Afghanistan, if we pay heed to such threats, we will never be able to finish a film. However, I continued shooting till 4 am and we finished the scene. I forgot that such horrifying news had come to me because when your life is half off the cliff, you become fearless,” she shared.
In spite of such experiences, Shama cherishes her time spent in the desert. She said, “In the beginning of the project people used to keep coming up to me and saying ‘aap bahut jasoor aurat hai (you are a very brave woman)’. Whenever the ladies there used to get a chance to talk to me they would cry and say that I must have done some good deeds in my past to have become an independent woman. They used to refer to me as an ‘azaad woman’. The women there were so suppressed. They used to be scared that if they lift their burqa they will be shot dead. One of the actresses who played the role of the fourth wife was threatened so much that she left Afghanistan and went to Canada forever. I used to cry at times over the misery the women there had to go through and sometimes just smile at myself looking at the small change I was able to bring. Once a man came and told me that he would tell his wife to work now because he loved my spirit.”
At present Shama is in the process of making her second full feature film. “It will be an Indian film and I will start shooting in March. I’m also doing a lot of serials of which one is based on the 100 years of cinema,” she summed up.