Themes: Haunted By the Past, Immigrant Life, Sibling Relationships
Main Cast: Abdullah Jewayni, Baktash Zaher, Yasmine Weiss, Sophia Cameron, Yunis Azizi, Omar Arzo, Naqi Sani, David Azizi, Freshta Sadeed
Release Year: 2003
Country: US/AF
Run Time: 79 minutes
Plot
Haris (Baktash Zaher) is a struggling artist living in New York City. He left Afghanistan as a child, when the Russians invaded and his parents were killed. Now in his late twenties, he feels disconnected from the world, and he's tormented by nightmares, so he decides to delve into the past and uncover his roots. He meets Sunny (David Azizi), a food vendor who brings Haris into his home. Laila (Yasmine Weiss) also lives in New York, with her conservative family, who are bound to the patriarchal traditions of their homeland. Her family is trying to arrange her marriage to a local Afghan man, who happens to be a thug. Laila despairs of ever finding true love, but she's determined to be her own woman. When she meets Haris, she's initially cold to him. She tells him she doesn't date Afghan men. But as her own family life begins to disintegrate, she begins to see that Haris has entered her world for a reason. FireDancer was the feature debut of writer/director Jawed Wassel. In October of 2001, Wassel was murdered by an old college acquaintance who had become involved with the film's production. Wassel's creative team, including co-producer Vida Zaher-Khadem (the star's sister) and producer John G. Roche, completed the film and brought it to Kabul, where it was the first film screened publicly after the Taliban regime was toppled. FireDancer was also the first film ever submitted by Afghanistan for Academy Awards consideration. The film had its U.S. premiere at the 2003 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Review
Jawed Wassel's FireDancer is a consistently interesting exploration of the lives of Afghan-Americans and their struggle to balance their connection to religious and cultural traditions with their need to adapt to a new world. The leads, Baktash Zaher as Haris and Yasmine Weiss as Laila, are appealing, and once they get past their overly strident first encounter, Wassel is successful at making us root for them to get together. The cast is generally good, with a few performances, like David Azizi's exuberant comic turn as Sunny, standing out. FireDancer has the makings of a first-rate culture-clash romantic comedy in these characters (along with interesting supporting characters like Laila's blindly sexist brother, Farhad [Omar Arzo]). To Wassel's credit, he had a more challenging film in mind, one that mines the traumatic past of a nation and the complexities involved in assimilation into a different culture, at a time when one is also discovering one's own values. Unfortunately, the filmmaker's reach may have exceeded his grasp. The flashback/ghost sequences of Haris's childhood experiences of escaping Afghanistan and of his murdered father speaking to him, and Laila's sister's (Sophia Cameron) strange visions of her own return to her country, are clumsily inserted into the story and distract from the more simply appealing parts of the story. Wassel still deserves a great deal of credit for his ambition, and for making a compelling, if flawed, first feature. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Cast
Baktash Zaher - Haris
Yasmine Weiss - Laila
Sophia Cameron - Zohra
Yunis Azizi - Rustum
Omar Arzo - Farhad
Naqi Sani - Zari
David Azizi - Sunny
Freshta Sadeed - Parwana
Ali Popal - Little Haris; Atia Jewayni - Zari; Abdullah Jewayni - Laila's Suitor
Credit
Ginger Teig - Art Director, Vida Zaher Khadem - Co-producer, Vida Zaher Khadem - First Assistant Director, Jawed Wassel - Director, Bill Gerstenmaier - Editor, Lizzie Donahue - Editor, Jeff Marcello - Editor, Tom Fox - Executive Producer, Gulam Jewayni - Executive Producer, William Nix - Executive Producer, Robert Siegel - Executive Producer, Eric Rayman - Executive Producer, Wayne Sharpe - Composer (Music Score), Bruce Hathaway - Composer (Music Score), John Loeffler - Musical Direction/Supervision, Bud Gardner - Cinematographer, Kate Wood - Producer, Jawed Wassel - Producer, John G. Roche - Producer, Matthew Siegel - Sound/Sound Designer, Bernard Hayden - Sound/Sound Designer, Jawed Wassel - Screenwriter, Renato Tonelli - Additional Cinematography
