WE CAME HOME : VICTIMS OF RELIGIOUS SCARS BY PRADIP BISWAS, THE Indian EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS, India
JURY MEMBER INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL OF India AND FRIBOURG INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, SWISS
44TH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL OF India, GOA, 2013.
It sounds quite engaging to know that one woman filmmaker from Afganisthan ARIANA DELWAR could pluck courage to make a film called We Came Home. Based on 9/11 happentance, Ariana had a roughshod memories about what could happen to Muslims and Arabs in America. WE CAME HOME tells the story of Afghanistan through Afghan American artist, Ariana Delawari. Born into a suburban Los Angeles home, the same year the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Ariana's life subtly dovetails parallel to the ever-changing events of her father's homeland. Her parents name her after the ancient name of Afghanistan. This has mythic tinge. Her home is filled with refugee relatives, parties with live Afghan music, and her father's fierce dedication to his homeland, a cause the entire family is dedicated to.
While the narrative is in progress, her father, Noor, plans anti-Soviet peace protests and lobbies the United States Congress, Ariana and her sisters being delighted dance to Madonna and play with their cousins. The Delawari household is a place of both celebration and activism, full of humanism. With Noor's family attempting to recreate the Kabul in big America they came to know that they would be the targets of 9/11 out of suspicion though they are not part of it. Under duress and police surveillance they were forced to leave behind, before the tanks and the land mines. Incidentally, Ariana watches her father's efforts and she is painfully aware that nobody seems to care, and questions her father's commitment to a land most people cannot find on a map. She watches her father shout about the Soviets, the rise of the Taliban and warnings of Osama Bin Laden. All before 9/11
and but they all fell to deaf ears. September 11th changes the course of Ariana's family's lives. Her parents sell everything and move to Kabul to help reconstruct the country. Ariana finally sees Afghanistan for herself. This is juncture when Ariana had to plan how to document ten years of traveling between Los Angeles and Kabul. While documenting the land of her ancestry through photographs, film and music, she undergoes a bizarre change in her imagination thinking how to highlight before the world. America overdid things relating to Afghans and Muslim on the whole. Ariana believes she is witnessing the moment Afghanistan will finally be free. Her father thrives as he helps reconstruct Afghanistan's banking system. She narrated one day two planes flew into the World Trade Center and my life changed forever. She knew right away what she was going to be making a film about, and she knew why dhr cried so hard when that Moroccan man predicted her future. Her soul knew before her life had caught up with it. That year her parents sold everything they owned and moved back to Afghanistan to help rebuild the country. Afghanistan had been my father's cause for my entire life. She had never dreamed that he and her mother would be moving back there, or that she would have the chance to travel there in her lifetime. Just a few months after graduating from USC School of Cinematic Arts, she was on a plane headed to Kabul with a Canon GL2, a bunch of mini DV tapes, and an old manual Nikon camera. she didn't think she was making a film at that point. Ariana thought she was feeling out the situation to figure out which story she would eventually tell. With the Taliban resurgence, Ariana realizes that her currency is art, and that the opportunity to bridge the two halves of her existence would shatter soon. She rounds up her Los Angeles band-mates and sets out to record an album in Kabul with three Afghan Ustads, or master musicians. The recording is a glimpse into the challenges of building anything in Afghanistan after thirty years of war, but nothing can touch the universal language of music that unfolds between these LA hipsters and elder maestros. These young American artists learn firsthand what it means to risk everything for art. This is the life time experience for them all. Ariana names her album "Lion of Panjshir" and filmmaker David Lynch releases the album. Though Ariana receives international acclaim, she's heartbroken, because Afghanistan keeps getting worse. In 2011, her father was arrested by the very government he has worked so hard to build. Ariana must decide what to do when war and corruption threaten her father's life. Though terrified that her father could be wrongfully imprisoned, or worse, Ariana finally understands him. She too has a responsibility to the Afghans she has met along her journeys. Even with Noor's life threatened, he cannot abandon his people and Ariana cannot let them be forgotten.
