The rights to the book were bought by Spielberg's DreamWorks studios. Years later the adult Amir, now living in America, seeks to redeem himself by returning to Kabul to help Hassan's family. Amir is too scared to help, leaving him tormented by guilt. While Amir is a Pashtun, the ethnic group that has traditionally ruled Afghanistan, Hassan's family are Hazaras, who have historically suffered persecution.ĭespite the gulf in class and ethnicity, Hassan is forever defending Amir from bullies and the pair share a love of kite-fighting, one of Afghanistan's most popular pastimes.īut their lives are changed forever when, after triumphing in a kite-fighting contest, Hassan is cornered by a local thug who beats and rapes him. The Kite Runner is the tale of two Afghan boys (Ahmad pictured holding a kite) united in war-torn Kabul by their love of kites 'They never expected that an actor from The Kite Runner would be a refugee in Sweden.' 'When people found out that I was the guy who was in Kite Runner, they all told me what a good job I did,' he told The Telegraph. He now lives in Borlange in Sweden with a foster family, plays for the local football team and dreams of going to film school.Īhmad was surprised by the positive comments he received in Sweden for his role in the film. He swam across the border from Belarus and sometimes went without food for two days during the treacherous journey. The child star was smuggled 4,000 miles to Sweden. The rest of his family were unable to obtain visas despite claiming they were being threatened by the Taliban, so they returned.Īhmad, now 17, told The Telegraph that on one occasion, a brick was thrown through his car window in Kabul and the attacker shouted abuse at him for featuring in the film. The film was banned in Afghanistan and Ahmad and his father lived in exile in Dubai for two years, paid for by the film company. The Kite Runner plays at the Helen Hayes Theatre on Broadway through October 30.Ahmad (pictured front), who earned just £9,000 for his role, claims producers agreed to delete the rape scene "And I'm glad they've gone in that direction. "I'm grateful to the production for doing that and it's the right thing to do," says Hosseini. Khaled Hosseini's foundation is one of the recipients. Portions of every ticket sold go to humanitarian organizations which help people in Afghanistan, as well as refugees. The Kite Runner's producers are hoping audiences have more than just an imaginative, empathetic experience at the theater. Just Amir describing the action, while the other actors appear on stage, looking up and swinging wind-making instruments "that are basically big rubber bands on a stick," says Croft, "and you spin them, and they make the sound of wind." And when Amir and Hassan fly their kite in the big kite battle of Kabul that is a centerpiece of the book – and the play – there are no kites.
There are very few props – some crates, a cart and a backdrop that looks like sails. The set is simple – wooden planks, with upturned edges on either side – kind of like a skate park. "And the best way to make it epic theater is to make it simply and to allow the audience's imagination to do a lot of the work."Īmir Arison stars in The Kite Runner on Broadway. "You can channel all that stuff into a sort of epic form of theater making," says Croft. In addition to creating authenticity in the staging, director Giles Croft says the adaptation compresses a sprawling Dickensian narrative, filled with coincidence and melodrama, and makes it stage-worthy. "There was one Afghan young woman who said, 'I could see myself up there on that stage, you know, in my nikah ceremony.' " Ghilzai is particularly proud of a wedding sequence, where she coached the actors in the proper way to kiss the Koran. It's going to take them away from that experience." "What would an Afghan see when they're sitting here? You know, if the turban is wrong, the accent is wrong, and somebody's body language doesn't match that part of the world. "When I sit in that theater, I'm looking at every aspect of it with my Afghan eyes," Ghilzai explains. Ghilzai works with all elements of the production – writing, directing, acting, design – to ensure that it's authentic. So, I was best friends with Khaled's sister." And on the weekends, there were probably around 10 or 12 new immigrant families that would get together at somebody's house. "We settled in San Jose in 1980 at the exact same time as when Khaled's family had come. after the Russian occupation," says Ghilzai. And one of the ways Arison prepared was by working with cultural consultant Humaira Ghilzai.