A heart-wrenching story of childhood in Afghanistan, rendered in enchanting animation
Screenwriter Anita Doron discusses her new award-winning film, The Breadwinner.
Growing up in the former Soviet Union, filmmaker Anita Doron knew very little about Afghanistan. To a young Soviet girl in the 1980s, the country was a distant, enigmatic place where soldiers went during the nine-year Soviet–Afghan War, and never came back. This childhood intrigue sparked a lifelong interest in Afghanistan in Doron—and a deep desire to understand the true, human stories born within the war-torn country.
After wrapping her 2012 film The Lesser Blessed, Doron had begun developing her own project about Afghanistan when she was serendipitously approached about adapting The Breadwinner, a beloved 2001 novel by Deborah Ellis about Parvana—a strong-willed, 11-year-old Afghan girl—set in Kabul during Taliban rule in 2001. Canadian production company Aircraft Pictures and Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon (which also developed Song of the Sea and The Secret of Kells) were producing the film, with animator Nora Twomey set to direct. Doron jumped at the opportunity to write the film’s screenplay.
Four years later, The Breadwinner has traveled to film festivals around the world, garnered rave reviews, and racked up industry awards. The film is out this week in North America. Here, Doron, a TED Fellow who lives between Canada and France, talks about adapting a novel for the screen, what it was like working with producer Angelina Jolie on the project, and why her 6-year-old son hasn’t seen the full film yet.
How did you first get involved with The Breadwinner?
The film started with a close encounter with two fellow Canadian filmmakers, Anthony Leo and Andrew Rosen. We were part of a group invited to a meet and greet with Sesame Street in Toronto, to talk about possibilities of working with them. I shared with Andrew and Anthony that I was working on a script set in Afghanistan, and that I was really interested in the country’s culture. They said, “Well, that’s funny, because we’re looking for somebody to adapt a book, set in Afghanistan, as an animated feature, and we were thinking of you.” It was this odd coincidence. They had seen some of my previous work, especially the magical realism films I made, and we respected each other immensely. It just came together perfectly. It was a great experience, with so much passion and laughter. Anthony, Andrew and I are now working on our next animated project.
What drew you to Afghanistan as a subject in the first place?
I grew up in the Soviet Union and Afghanistan was a big part of Soviet mythology. It was this mysterious place where Soviet soldiers died senselessly. I never understood what really happened there, because it was never talked about. It was something dark and strange.
When I was a kid, we used to sing this incredible song in the mountains, around the fire: “Monolog ciornovo tiulpana” by Aleksandr Rozenbaum. It’s a troubadour-monologue of a Black Tulip pilot, which was a military transport plane for Soviet soldiers who died in Afghanistan. The lyrics go, “Again some boy has let the company down by dying. In Shindand, Khandahar and Bagram… Again we must place a heavy stone on our souls.” I love this song to this day. It breaks your heart.
So I was always curious what the truth was. What really happened in Afghanistan? As I later got access to information about the country, I was fascinated and saddened by the tragedy of this place used as a battleground by empires at war with each other. These wars often have nothing to do with the people of Afghanistan.
Tell me about adapting a beloved novel into a screenplay.
The film is based on a novel by Deborah Ellis. It’s part of a trilogy, which she created by interviewing countless women and children at Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan—and then, of course, from Deborah’s own heart and imagination. My job was to give the animators a visual world, to create an imaginative representation of the story and reveal the interior life of the main character, Parvana. I took her fears, hopes, joys and dreams and worked them into images and moments that could carry the viewer right into the centre of her soul. I also created a story within the story to take us through the changes and gradual fortification of her heart.
Adapting a novel requires entering someone’s world, becoming them in your imagination and feeling it all come to life in your mind. I call it method writing. I read the book, and interviews with Deborah, and anything I could get my hands on. I spent months and months researching and feeling and seeing Afghan poetry, stories, music, food, crafts, fabrics and so on. And then I let myself get lost in the chaos of it all and wrote the script. I also worked with Nora Twomey, a visionary director who operated from her soul and elevated the process with her artistry and sensitivity, and a desire to do justice to the human truth at the core of the story.
Deborah Ellis was wonderfully generous: she let us run with her story, and take it where we wanted. She was hands-off, and trusted that we would honor her work and the reason for it, which I hope we did. The first time I met her was actually at the premiere of The Breadwinner at the Toronto Film Festival, when we were walking down the red carpet together. There was an instant friendship. A kinship. We sat beside each other during the film and both of us were in tears and hugging each other once the final credits rolled.
How did Angelina Jolie get involved with the project?
It was a beautiful coincidence, because she’s also somebody who has been interested in the stories of refugees for a long, long time, and was searching to tell a story along these lines. She was sent the script I wrote, and she loved it and wanted to be a part of the project. She was involved creatively and passionately from that moment on. I think she was there for Nora during casting as well, giving her own thoughts, as she’s also a director herself.
She was there for the premiere, too, and it was fantastic to see her glowing proudly. At the end, we were all up on stage for questions from the audience, mostly directed at the director, writers and voice actors. And then there was a final question given to a young girl, and she said, “I have a question to Angelina Jolie. As children, what can we do? How can we help, Angelina?” We all gasped in delight. And Angelina said, “Well, you just start by being brave like you are right now, standing up and asking questions. And engage with others around you who are not from your own country, not from your background. Be curious.” It was such a great answer because it was practical. It was something that this little girl and others in the audience could do right away.
It’s easy to feel helpless when on the other side of the world people are suffering so badly. What can we do in really complex and faraway situations? We can strive to understand and fall into empathy. We can move beyond cold headlines and enter into human lives — feel their feelings. Reject the dividing concept of “others.”
Tell me about collaborating with other TED Fellows on this project.
As soon as I signed onto the project, I asked to attach Afghan artist and TED Fellow Aman Mojadidi to be a cultural consultant. Andrew and Anthony agreed immediately — they were deeply invested in making sure what we created would be as authentic and truthful as possible. Aman read various drafts of the script, and we had lengthy conversations about life in Afghanistan. I’d ask him questions like: “If I make Fattema and company stop closer to Kabul on their way to Mazar, is there a regular stop people take with roadside chai at about a day-and-a-half walking distance?” (Answer: “Yep — Salang Pass.”) He provided specificity and a sense of humor and understanding of the world, which was invaluable.
During the writing process, I also chatted a lot with TED Fellows Mohammad Tauheed, an architect, and Safwat Saleem, an artist, about both of my Afghan projects, just because they’re friends and smart and woke and ridiculously awesome. And a final funny thing: when I was writing the story within the story I was, and still am, working with TED Fellow and entrepreneur Suleiman Bakhit, so I named the boy character Sulayman, with the Afghan spelling.
Is The Breadwinner a children’s movie?
It’s a challenging, emotional film and only children past a certain age can digest this kind of imagery and not be taken into a place too dark to digest. At the same time, children have a much higher emotional maturity than we often think, as well as an incredible ability to empathize. One of my most powerful experiences with this film was in Italy, with the Rome Film Festival, in front of 1,000 teenagers. Their energy level and their response to the film was incredible. They would scream when Parvana was in pain, and cheer when she did something heroic. They really were on a journey with the character.
For adults, an animated film can take us back to that beautiful feeling of really being in empathy with a character, letting a story wash over us in a way that’s truly immersed in character and setting. I think that’s the most important thing — for somebody to get out of their own world for a moment and into the world of somebody else. Animated film can accomplish that very viscerally.
The audience for this film is anybody who has a beating heart, who wants to feel for somebody they have never met, and may never have a chance to meet in real life. Anyone who wants to experience the culture and the longings and the fears of another world, and see how much they are like their own longings and fears — just in different colors and shades. And of course, fans of animation, too, fans of Cartoon Saloon, and people who are engaged in understanding how our world got to be where it is today.
This is the first time I’ve been involved in an animated film and I’ve fallen madly in love with it — because with animation, anything is possible. You don’t have to worry about budget constraints, or the impossibility of setting and peculiar looks and faces. There are no limits. Anything you imagine is creatable. And it was very exciting, very liberating and invigorating to write that way.
Has your 6-year-old son seen the film?
He’s not old enough to see it, but he was there for the Italian screening. We decided we would let him and his best friend, a 7-year-old girl, watch the beginning, just to get a sense of the film before it got too intense. They watched it and as they were about to be overwhelmed, we snuck out of the theatre. For the first time in his life, he walked the red carpet with me, in his bow tie, in front of cheering crowds and dozens of photographers. He saw me address the large audience and give various interviews. It was amazing to share this with him, and our friends. At the end of the trip, he gave me two thumbs up and said, “Your movie is really good, maman.”
The TED Fellows program hand-picks young innovators from around the world to raise international awareness of their work and maximize their impact.
