The studio distributing “The Kite Runner,” a tale of childhood betrayal, sexual predation and ethnic tension in Afghanistan, is delaying the film’s release to get its three schoolboy stars out of Kabul — perhaps permanently — in response to fears that they could be attacked for their enactment of a culturally inflammatory rape scene.
Executives at the distributor, Paramount Vantage, are contending with issues stemming from the rising lawlessness in Kabul in the year since the boys were cast.
The boys and their relatives are accusing the filmmakers of mistreatment, and warnings have been relayed to the studio from Afghan and American officials and aid workers that the movie could aggravate simmering enmities between the politically dominant Pashtun and the long-oppressed Hazara.
In an effort to prevent not only a public-relations disaster but also possible violence, studio lawyers and marketing bosses have employed a stranger-than-fiction team of consultants. In August they sent a retired CIA counterterrorism operative in the region to Kabul to assess the dangers facing the child actors. And on Sunday a Washington-based political adviser flew to the United Arab Emirates to arrange a haven for the boys and their relatives.
“If we’re being overly cautious, that’s OK,” Karen Magid, a lawyer for Paramount, said. “We’re in uncharted territory.”
In interviews, more than a dozen people involved in the studio’s response described grappling with vexing questions: testing the limits of corporate responsibility, wondering who was exploiting whom and pondering the price of on-screen authenticity.
“The Kite Runner,” like the best-selling 2003 novel by Khaled Hosseini on which it is based, spans three decades of Afghan strife, from before the Soviet invasion through the rise of the Taliban. At its heart is a friendship between Amir, a wealthy Pashtun boy, and Hassan, the Hazara son of Amir’s father’s servant. In a pivotal scene, Hassan is raped in an alley by a Pashtun bully. Later, Sohrab, another Hazara boy, is preyed on by a corrupt Taliban official.
Though the book is admired in Afghanistan by many in the elite, its story remains unfamiliar to the broader population, for whom oral storytelling and rumor carry greater weight.
The Taliban destroyed nearly all movie theaters in Afghanistan, but pirated DVDs often arrive soon after a major film’s release in the West. As a result, Paramount Vantage, the art-house and specialty label of Paramount Pictures, has pushed back the release of the $18 million movie by six weeks, to Dec. 14, when the young stars’ school year will have ended.
In January in Afghanistan, DVDs of “Kabul Express” — an Indian film in which a character hurls insults at Hazara — led to protests, government denunciations and calls for the execution of the offending actor, who fled the country.
The “Kite Runner” actor who plays Hassan, Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada, 12, told reporters that he feared for his life because his fellow Hazara might feel humiliated by his rape scene. His father says producers never told him of the scene until it was about to be shot and that they promised to cut it.
The film’s director, Marc Forster, said he saw “The Kite Runner” as “giving a voice and a face to people who’ve been voiceless and faceless for the last 30 years.”
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“The Kite Runner” will open the 43rd Chicago International Film Festival on Thursday night, a spokesman said. Read Michael Phillips’ review. Tempo