Finding Home in a Daydream: Shahrbanoo Sadat's 'The Orphanage' and Afghan Storytelling

Following the absorbing depiction of village life in Wolf and Sheep, Shahrbanoo Sadat returns with The Orphanage, a nostalgic paean to a more progressive period in Afghanistan's history that similarly captures the frivolities and challenges of youth. A blend of biography and fiction, the film also attests to the ways in which storytelling plays a central role in identity formation and cultural transmission, writes Anthony Carew.

Additional keywords:
autobiography, Mujahideen, Iran, Tajikistan, USSR, Russia, theocracy, political Islam, Bollywood, soccer