Son of a Lion: 92 minutes. Rated: PG. Director: Benjamin Gilmour. Starring: Niaz Khan Shinwari, Sher Alam Miskeen Ustad
Persepolis: 92 minutes. Rated: M. Directors: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud. Starring (the voices of): Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux
Sydney filmmaker Benjamin Gilmour put his life on the line to make Son of a Lion. Iranian-born Marjane Satrapi sketched her life onto paper for Persepolis. These are two very different films — the former a low-budget drama shot on digital video, the latter a slick, uber-stylised animation — yet each provides its own insight into growing up against a background of historical and present violence in the Middle East.
Son of a Lion is set and shot in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, in the tribal town Darra Adam Khel. Darra is arid and isolated, and is known for its Pashtun craftsmen who use reverse engineering to forge state of the art firearms from scrap metal.
Sher Alam Afridi (Ustad) is one such gun-maker, a widower determined that his young son, Niaz (Shinwari) will follow in his footsteps. But Niaz is not interested in the family trade. He wants to attend school and get an education like his peers in Peshawar.
This familial conflict makes for standard coming-of-age fodder. However it's the touches of authenticity that distinguish the film — the craggy beauty of the north-western Pakistan landscape, and Gilmour's attention to the minutiae of daily life in Darra.
The most remarkable thing about Son of a Lion is that it exists. Many of the inhabitants of the North West Frontier Province are distrustful of Western filmmakers. Even Morgan Spurlock, the maverick filmmaker brave enough to almost commit 'suicide by Maccas' in 2004's Supersize Me, deemed the region to be too dangerous for foreigners in his recent documentary Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden.
Gilmour took the risk, but shot discreetly. His use of handheld digital video camera gives the film a guerilla feel. The actors are non-professionals — some, including Shinwari, are immediate family members of executive producer Hayat Khan Shinwari.
The director — an ambulance paramedic by trade — made Son of a Lion as a means to an end. He hoped to share the humanity of the Darra Pashtuns with an international audience of what he describes as 'Islamaphobic' Westerners. The result stands as both empathetic homage, and an accomplished piece of 'shoestring' filmmaking.
The no-frills story and production values of Son