Snow Monkey

The Australian artist and filmmaker George Gittoes has been living in a compound in Jalalabad with his wife since 2011. The Yellow House is an Afghan refuge that also serves as a film set. It’s an assembly line for cheap Pashtun films that don’t shy away from violence. In one particularly amusing scene, a shoot is disrupted by the noise of megaphones used by a gang of young ice cream sellers. Dressed in traditional Afghan dress, Gittoes approaches them and then decides to get the boys together with two other youth gangs from the city by getting them to act in and make a film. This is how “Baba,” as he is affectionately known, attempts to create a better future for destitute young people, forced into work by their parents. It garners him a compliment from a visiting local Taliban leader: “All Afghans love him,” he explains. What follows is a non-judgmental collage of scenes of joy and brutality, with only the aspect ratio giving away whether what is happening is acted or real. On and off set, the street urchins act like Mafiosi, while their hashish and heroin addict fathers waste away in the nearby park. The constant threat posed by drones and ground attacks make little impression on the youth – life goes on.