Sons of Haji Omar
Directed by Asen Balikci, David Newman, Richard Sorensen, Timothy Asch
Synopsis
Haji Omar and his three sons belong to the Lakenkhel, a Pashtun tribal group in northeastern Afghanistan. Concentrating within one family, the film draw sharp, colourful portraits of the protagonists and their problems. Haji Omar, a wealthy settled nomad, determined on economic diversification through his sons; Anwar, the eldest, his father’s favourite, pastoralist and expert horse-man; Janat Gul, cultivator and ambitious rebel; and Ismail, the youngest, attending school with a view to a job as a government official.Much of the film is concerned with pastoral nomadic activities, beginning in the spring camp in the steppe not far from the provincial centre, Baghlan, and moving in May and June up and over the Khawak pass to Mountain pastures in the Hindu Kush. Haji Omar’s family home is near the small market town of Nahrin, which the nomads visit on their spring migration; further sequences show life in the bazaar, classes in the high school, dealing with government officials and the expression of local rivalries in the Central Asian sport of buzkashi.
