Young Afghans play the fame game
I had always wanted to go to Afghanistan. My father was a hippy and had travelled there in the sixties. When I was a child he described it as a very special place with an incredible culture and epic landscapes. There had been a thriving music and arts scene at that time. But the country was essentially unreachable for me.
In 2007 a journalist, Rachel Reid, told me about Afghan Star. I knew it would work as a documentary and we developed the idea together. It was an amazing chance to finally get to Afghanistan.
Afghan Star is an adaption of Pop Idol. It was launched by Tolo TV, Afghanistan's leading independent television company. The winner received £5,000 – up to ten times the average Afghan salary. The whole series had the same structure as everywhere else, with regional auditions across the country, where thousands of contestants tried their luck.
The candidates performed their songs on stage and judges decided whether they went through to the top ten. From then on the public could vote for them via SMS (text messaging). At first the judges were harsh when somebody gave a bad performance, just like they do in the UK or the US. But the audience hated it so they became fairer.
The crew of Afghan Star did an amazing job, especially if you look at the environment they were working in. The electricity supply was hopeless, nothing worked, and the equipment had to be flown in from Dubai. They hadn't had training in producing a television show – they were learning on the job. The electric cable system was the most astounding thing. Hundreds of sound system cables, lights and microphone wires going everywhere. It was incredibly dangerous. But nine times out of ten it worked.
Our film team consisted of a cameraman, translator, driver, bodyguard and me. We wanted to observe the show itself but also the world around the show, the audience and of course those who made it. We didn't have to convince the candidates to be in the documentary. They wanted to be famous and being filmed by an English film crew made them feel even more glamorous.
After a while, we started to concentrate on four main characters. Each represented a different aspect of Afghan society. Rafi Naabzada was a pretty 19-year-old Tajik from Mazar-e-Sharif – he was the typical pop star. There was Hameed Sakhizada, a 20-year-old who belonged to the Hazara ethnic group who was trained as a classical musician.
One of the two girls, Lema Sahar, was a Pashtun singer from Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold. Lema, 25-years-old, was probably in it for the money as she came from a very poor family and winning the show seemed to her to be a way out of her situation. Finally, there was Setara Hussainzada, 22, from Herat in the west of Afghanistan. She was passionate and brave woman (though also a little naive) who lived for music.
The most dangerous moment during the whole production was definitely the day when Setara was voted off the show. She had to perform her last song on stage, so she went up there, singing her song – when she suddenly started to dance. It was electrifying.
Dancing is a very controversial thing to do in Afghanistan: many people disapprove and think it is immoral. I was backstage, watching her on screen. Everybody was staring at her in a combination of excitement, shock, horror and admiration.
During the dance her head scarf slipped down and everybody could see her full face and her hair. Then she even pointed her finger in the direction of the camera – just like a true pop star. It was such a dangerous thing to do. Even I as a foreigner had to cover up my whole body. I burst into tears when I saw her. It was a incredible gesture of freedom.
I don't think Setara had a clue that her dance would provoke such a scandal. By the end of the week a government minister and an ex-warlord were on television condemning her for it. They said she had insulted the whole society.
We went to Herat, to interview people in the street about Setara's dance. Many of the men got very upset and angry about what they had seen. It was the only time I was really frightened. Normally, nobody cared about us, but this day my presence as a woman with a film team was seen as an additional insult. It was much too dangerous for me to be on the street, so I decided to sit somewhere safe and let my cameramen and my translator conduct the interviews. One young man said: Setara should be killed.
Afghanistan is an unpredictable country. You never know what is going to happen next. One day we had to stop filming because a mini-war had broken out between two old warlords. Each warlord has it's own little militia, and the police were trying to deal with it. Later we had heard rumours that they were looking for someone to kidnap, to stop the police arresting their leader. These are situations you just don't want to be close to.
Logistically, the documentary about Afghan Star was very different from anything I had done before. In Afghanistan, electricity is limited. The roads are terrible. Flights are cancelled constantly. Sometimes we simply couldn't get where we wanted to go. The people are incredible poor. The kidnapping threat means that you can never let anyone know in advance where you are going to be so there can be no fixed filming schedules.
The lucky thing was that everyone had to come to the weekly show. So as long as we were in the studio, we knew we were going to meet our characters – and their fans.
The Afghans were passionate about Afghan Star. Sixty per cent the population is under 21 and, traditionally, people identify themselves with their tribe, region or gender. By creating something so popular, Afghan Star became a kind of identity or movement for the young people themselves. This is why the old guard is so frightened of it. This huge young population is very soon going to be a force and politically this is always a danger.
Setara went back to Kabul to record an album and more established musicians are taking care of her now. They made her dress in a less modern way and told her not to dance anymore. Still, she has achieved her dreams. She is an independent woman, becoming a pop star.
In contrast, Afghan Star's chairman Daoud Sediqi escaped to the US. He came with us to promote our documentary at the Sundance film festival in Utah. We said goodbye at the airport, but two days later he had not arrived in Kabul. I think he stayed in the US to seek political asylum. It is a really sad reflection of the current state of the country – Afghanistan is getting more and more dangerous. Even he didn't feel safe.
Havana Marking was interviewed by Alexandra Eul. Afghan Star will play at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in New York in June.