Mina Walking

Cast

Production

Yosef Baraki has stated that he was inspired to write the film after meeting with a group of child street sellers in Kabul. "What I noticed and [what] eventually led to writing this movie was the dynamic between them. In a country like Afghanistan it was interesting to see that the girls were making more money than the boys and were able to outsmart them. These children spent such a long time on the streets every day and didn’t go to school, either because they were orphaned or because war has affected their parents in a way that the children had to support the family."

The film was shot on location in Kabul, Afghanistan in 19 days with a crew of 5-6 people. Only a few professional actors appear in the film. Baraki developed the character of Mina by placing Farzana Nawabi in real life situations and only feeding her parts of the script everyday. To capture real-life Kabul, the crew needed to shoot unnoticed. "Sometimes I would climb onto the roofs of buildings and shoot down with a long lens to capture Mina at the market without being seen. If there were too many people on the street, we would reduce the number of our crew if we were too noticeable. We were trying to blend in because we had to move forward, due to our tight budget and our short schedule. We could not afford to being told we can’t film somewhere, so we had to improvise." [1]

Awards and nominations

Canadian Screen Awards (2016)

Berlin International Film Festival (2015)

Asia Pacific Screen Awards (2015)

International Film Festival of India (2015)

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival (2015)

Zlín Film Festival (2015)

SAARC Film Festival (2015)

Der Neue Heimatfilm Festival (2015)

International Film Festival TOFIFEST (2015)

Mumbai Film Festival (2015)

Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival (2015)

All Lights India International Film Festival (2015)

Festival Cinema Africano, Asia and Latin America (2016)