Nothingwood

Warm, flamboyant characters that any screenwriter would be proud to have invented are the fascinating raw material of „Nothingwood“, Sonia Kronlund’s delightfully entertaining documentary about Salim Shaheen and his merry band of filmmaking associates.

Chubby force of nature Shaheen has managed to make and self-distribute no fewer than 110 movies in war-torn Afghanistan. He can’t read or write, but he acts and directs by the seat of his pants and gets mobbed in the streets wherever he goes thanks to his little-guy centered tales modelled in part on Bollywood fare complete with singing and dancing. This is a crowd-pleasing winner that’s educational, touching and hilarious. An infectious live-for-today energy permeates every frame.

First-time filmmaker Kronlund works for French radio and has been visiting and reporting from Afghanistan for over 15 years. In her sparingly dosed voice-over she admits that since the stories she brought back to France tended to be about horrific topics, such as women disfigured by acid attacks, she wondered if perhaps she was missing something more jovial. The resulting documentary grips from the outset with its outsized, bottomlessly confident protagonist who it’s tempting to call the Ed Wood of Afghanistan.

Lisa Nessleson, Screen International