The Miscreants of Taliwood

Australian filmmaker and artist, George Gittoes, spent 2 years in Taliban-occupied Pakistan, risking life and limb to make a documentary about the film industry there – which is massive!  Third in the world to Hollywood and Bollywood, “Taliwood” has produced hundreds of films featuring hilarious gunfights, fake blood, and scenes with dwarves and action heroes.  Putting himself right in the middle of the action, Gittoes finds himself cast as the baddie in one film and becomes a local celebrity overnight.

After the Taliban shut down the entire industry over moral reasons, Gittoes bravely decides to fund the production of 2 Taliwood films when he discovers the average cost to make one is $4000.  As they make their films in the mountains of Pakistan, even shooting in caves supposedly occupied by Al-Qaeda forces, Gittoes becomes more and more exposed to Pakistani culture and how it informs their worldview. 

Interviews with actors, directors, mullahs, government officials and a particularly entertaining shop owner reveal a society practically devoid of real joy and happiness but with a strong appetite for escapist entertainment.  So their thriving film industry produces work that resonates for its aggressive, exploitive, vengeful and mildly sexual themes appealing to a strong sense of general frustration and shame.

Gittoes’ study of a culture the West really knows little about is both surreal and beautiful, and Gittoes himself comes off as the true “Most Interesting Man Alive.”  The Miscreants of Taliwood is truly enlightening, entertaining and wildly bizarre.