Chris Knipp
10-23-2024, 08:43 PM
http://www.chrisknipp.com/images/%20skby.jpg
BEN STURGULEWSKI: CHAMPIONS OF THE GOLDEN VALLEY (2024)
An idyllic wintry world that abruptly ended
This seems to be another of those documentaries that takes a left turn. It relies on an element of surprise, so it's best not to reveal what happens but if you know it's about Afghanistan in recent years, you'll already have an idea. And right at the outset you meet "Alishah the Coach," who is wreathed in shadows and in Germany, where he has become Alishah the Refugee.
Most of the film is about the Afghan Ski Challenge, which went on for nine years, and takes place in Bamyan, a region up in the mountains. The film footage of Bamyan is about innocence and happiness. The winning skier for several years is Mujtaba. He started his life herding sheep. His father talks about what a good son he is. Mujtaba's rival is Hussain Ali, who is from another ethnic group. Actually one is shia and the other Sunna Muslim. And when the kids are practicing, they hear the call to prayer and tell the cameraman they must go.
This is the most rudimentary of environments. Pleasures here are simple and strong. There's not much to do but herd animals and ski. The small boys make wooden skis. There are girls who ski too, though some of the women are not allowed to be filmed. (Later, it will turn out that most of the skiing girls have been able to leave the country, but they boys, including Hussain Ali and Mujtaba, have not, and after the regime change, when they try to restore skiiing competition, they choose not to compete but to focus on training the boys to ski.)
The Afghan Ski Challenge is a little like a marathon. There is a girls and wooden skis event, and a men's event. The competitors all rush out together in a crowd, climbing up the long slope. When they get to the top they ski down as fast as they can. Climbing up is part of the competition. The two leads climb up the slope every day to increase their strength.
It's hard to convey the purity of spirit of these Afghan Bamyan skiers, the smiles, the hi jinks: it's a joy to watch them. And that's why when this comes crashing down it's such a shock and a sadness. Collective celebration has changed to individual grieving. This is expressed by the later focus, in a passage most of which is filmed in black and white, on Alishah the Refugee in Saxony, with his wife and small kids, telling what happened and how they got out in the Kabul evacuation.
That is an event that could not be filmed. You will not find it in any documentary. The last we see of Bamyan is the Afthan Ski Challenge, with the two top competitors joyously embracing each other and the small boys laughing and playing. And let's not forget Sha Agha, the Wild Card, who for a while seems to be winning. The girls' competition in this event is an important statement to themselves and others in the society - even if it is only temporary. Now the truth is out: women can ski too.
What happened is not such a surprise, as we have been prepared in at the outset of the film for by the well-known story of 2001, when the Taliban defaced the 1500-year-old cave statues of the Buddha, which are in Banyan, where most of this story takes place. Six months later came the September 11th attacks in the US, and a month later, the Bush administration's initiation of the totally unwarranted and destructive US war on Afghanistan.
At the end of the film, Alishah and his family go to Fichtelberg 20 km from the refugee camp in Saxony, a first visit to a ski resort. Like Alishah, we're left with vivid memories of Bamyan skiing, seeming almost like a dream - of the joy of skiing in the purest rural environment.
Champions of the Golden Valley, a film whose editing pointedly, perhaps sometimes too pointedly, illustrates its many surprises, is brightened by the presence of two Two scores, Joaquin Gomez's for the Afghanistan segments and Cyrus Reynold's for the Germany ones.
Champions of the Golden Valley, 81 mins., debuted at Tribeca, also showing at DC/DOX and Woods Hole, Aspen, Newport Beach, Lunenburg. Audience Choice wqrd at the Heartland Festival, Indianapolis. Coming to Hot Springs, Austin, Savannah.
BEN STURGULEWSKI: CHAMPIONS OF THE GOLDEN VALLEY (2024)
An idyllic wintry world that abruptly ended
This seems to be another of those documentaries that takes a left turn. It relies on an element of surprise, so it's best not to reveal what happens but if you know it's about Afghanistan in recent years, you'll already have an idea. And right at the outset you meet "Alishah the Coach," who is wreathed in shadows and in Germany, where he has become Alishah the Refugee.
Most of the film is about the Afghan Ski Challenge, which went on for nine years, and takes place in Bamyan, a region up in the mountains. The film footage of Bamyan is about innocence and happiness. The winning skier for several years is Mujtaba. He started his life herding sheep. His father talks about what a good son he is. Mujtaba's rival is Hussain Ali, who is from another ethnic group. Actually one is shia and the other Sunna Muslim. And when the kids are practicing, they hear the call to prayer and tell the cameraman they must go.
This is the most rudimentary of environments. Pleasures here are simple and strong. There's not much to do but herd animals and ski. The small boys make wooden skis. There are girls who ski too, though some of the women are not allowed to be filmed. (Later, it will turn out that most of the skiing girls have been able to leave the country, but they boys, including Hussain Ali and Mujtaba, have not, and after the regime change, when they try to restore skiiing competition, they choose not to compete but to focus on training the boys to ski.)
The Afghan Ski Challenge is a little like a marathon. There is a girls and wooden skis event, and a men's event. The competitors all rush out together in a crowd, climbing up the long slope. When they get to the top they ski down as fast as they can. Climbing up is part of the competition. The two leads climb up the slope every day to increase their strength.
It's hard to convey the purity of spirit of these Afghan Bamyan skiers, the smiles, the hi jinks: it's a joy to watch them. And that's why when this comes crashing down it's such a shock and a sadness. Collective celebration has changed to individual grieving. This is expressed by the later focus, in a passage most of which is filmed in black and white, on Alishah the Refugee in Saxony, with his wife and small kids, telling what happened and how they got out in the Kabul evacuation.
That is an event that could not be filmed. You will not find it in any documentary. The last we see of Bamyan is the Afthan Ski Challenge, with the two top competitors joyously embracing each other and the small boys laughing and playing. And let's not forget Sha Agha, the Wild Card, who for a while seems to be winning. The girls' competition in this event is an important statement to themselves and others in the society - even if it is only temporary. Now the truth is out: women can ski too.
What happened is not such a surprise, as we have been prepared in at the outset of the film for by the well-known story of 2001, when the Taliban defaced the 1500-year-old cave statues of the Buddha, which are in Banyan, where most of this story takes place. Six months later came the September 11th attacks in the US, and a month later, the Bush administration's initiation of the totally unwarranted and destructive US war on Afghanistan.
At the end of the film, Alishah and his family go to Fichtelberg 20 km from the refugee camp in Saxony, a first visit to a ski resort. Like Alishah, we're left with vivid memories of Bamyan skiing, seeming almost like a dream - of the joy of skiing in the purest rural environment.
Champions of the Golden Valley, a film whose editing pointedly, perhaps sometimes too pointedly, illustrates its many surprises, is brightened by the presence of two Two scores, Joaquin Gomez's for the Afghanistan segments and Cyrus Reynold's for the Germany ones.
Champions of the Golden Valley, 81 mins., debuted at Tribeca, also showing at DC/DOX and Woods Hole, Aspen, Newport Beach, Lunenburg. Audience Choice wqrd at the Heartland Festival, Indianapolis. Coming to Hot Springs, Austin, Savannah.