Bells of Kabul (Les Clochettes de Kaboul) | Chabname Zariab

[BluBonnet]

A new profile on Golshifteh Farahani mentions one of her upcoming projects, the feature film debut of Chabname Zariab:

Close to two decades have passed since Golshifteh Farahani was forced to flee Iran after her appearance alongside Leonardo Di Caprio in Ridley Scott’s Middle East thriller Body of Lies angered the Islamic Regime authorities in her native country.

Farahani has just come off the set of Paris-based Afghan filmmaker Chabname Zariab’s Bells of Kabul (Les Clochettes de Kaboul).

Set against the backdrop of Afghanistan in 2021 as the Taliban take control, the storyline revolves around a young widow working in the kitchen of a so-called Bacha Bazi house, clubs where young male dancers perform for older men.

“It’s a tiny movie done with the minimum that any movie can be done with today and I’m so happy I did it,” she says. “It’s a first movie. My intuition told me I needed to do it. I always go with my gut feeling, my heart, whether it’s Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson, or Extraction or a small movie.”

Bells of Kabul marked Farahani’s first shoot in nine months following a breather after Julia Ducournau’s Cannes 2025 Palme d’Or contender Alpha, taking inspiration from the early days of the AIDS pandemic.

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