Buzkashi season is coming to its climax with the Nauruz (Persian new year) games upon us. This game in Gisar was said to be one of the biggest of the year, held high up in the mountains. Unlike other grassy fields where buzkashi is played, this one certainly stirred up the dirt (in more ways that one)!
Buzkashi Nauruz 2011
March 17th, 2011Buzkashi scrum
March 31st, 2010
Going below for the goat
We rented a cherry picker crane for the game in Gisar last Sunday, allowing us to get some amazing bird’s eye view of the action below. We’ll put up some clips soon, but for now here’s a still Randy took from the crane, looking right into the middle of the action. Somewhere near the bottom of the picture you’ll see the bum of one player reaching down to grab the goat. This is such a dangerous game – he could be crushed by one of the horses – and accidents do happen. Not your usual sport…
Happy Spring!
March 27th, 2010Happy Spring!
Or, as they say here, Nauruz Mubarak, Happy New Year.
The spring equinox is THE big holiday here thanks to the persian Zoroastrian influences (look it up on wiki), there are concerts, huge meals, a week off work and special events like wrestling competitions and Buzkashi.
Last weekend I went to my first Buzkashi game and it was a really big thrill. First, there are between 200-250 horsemen in a field as big as 4 football fields put side to side (this varies from region to region, sometimes it’s way bigger, like 15-20 football fields). Now they have loose friendships/alliances but it’s basically every man for himself as you must grab a 80-120 lbs headless goat carcass off the ground and drag it through the goal posts (old half-buried tires) for prizes. Doing this on a galloping horse, with everyone else trying to stop you has gotta be hard… it’s quite amazing that anyone actually scores at all, but they do, and the breakaways are fantastically wild.
The scrums are also intense and frenzied with horses bucking up, biting and smashing into each other. It’s really something to see in slow-motion…
I was shooting that game from down on the field last weekend (which had about 600 spectators on the risings slopes on each side) and I tried to get close up shots of our 3 main players. Of course, after a short while, a breakaway would happen and surprisingly, not always in the direction of the goal. I often had to move very quickly up the sides to escape being trampled. Hello adrenaline.
The crowd also has to get out of the way now and again as there are no ‘out of bound’ lines and they can take the goat up the slopes, into the crowd, around the cars, vendors, filmmakers, etc
This weekend, there was rain all night and all morning of the game, so the field was a big clay/mud bath. Many horses/players fell over and I had 3″of muck stuck to my boots almost all day, making escape that more difficult. The bigger crowd (800) did get a kick everytime someone fell. I fell here and there but one of our local helpers, a young iranian filmmaker called Roozbey, was caught by a sudden breakaway and was trampled when he lost his footing. He got stomped on the legs and in the ribs and was a little stunned (and very very muddy) when I met up with him. On the ride home I told him “You’re really lucky you didn’t get seriously hurt, you must have a horseshoe up your ass!”
My attempt at humour was lost across the cultural divide.
Randy
Randy with a muddy camera on a muddy day
Driver Azam and his secret
March 22nd, 2010It came as quite a surprise when our driver Azam (yes, same name as the player) one day pulled out some old photographs of himself from about 15 years ago. This photo is of him as a bodybuilder in his early 30s – this photo was taken of him at a competition in Ukraine, in which he came in second place. The great thing is that once the characters in the film saw the photos they immediately opened up to them as the elder advisor to their training, a bonding between athletes that has also helped in our access to them. Azam is a key member of our film team and we’re really happy (and lucky) to have him.
Who knew our driver had a secret past?
Kurgan Teppe
March 21st, 2010Here’s a team photo in front of the great statue of Sumoni in Kurgan Teppe, the region that Azam the “chovanduz” (or Buzkashi player) comes from. Back row left to right is Azam chovanduz, just after we filmed him at the dentist getting some painful work done. Next is Randy and Azam our driver. In front is Malohat, our translator. (Najeeb is missing because he’s behind the camera). Sure, maybe you can’treally see us all that well because we’re so small, but we really just wanted to show you the statue. More soon.
Buzkashi film team photo
Crazy Buzkashi photo
March 16th, 2010
Intensity is all relative
This is a curious shot. In the back are active players, including Saidullo, a fierce Buzkahsi player whipping his horse as if in the middle of an intense game. In the middle of the pack, however, is a young boy in a white hat who seems totally unaware of what’s happening behind him, and at the front left of the photo is a rider on his cell phone, completely oblivious to the fact that he’s on the Buzkashi field at all!
Nauruz Buzkashi
March 16th, 2010Randy Kelly and I (Najeeb Mirza) are presently in Tajikistan preparing to shoot the big Buzkashi tournaments during the Nauruz (Persian New Year) festivities. Spring is already here and the games have so far been hot, dusty and intense. We’ll be adding more photos and short video clips over the coming days, whenever we will get access to the internet.
Dust flying
Buzkashi part 2 filming
December 31st, 2009Arrived in Tajikistan a few days ago to start filming the second phase of the film Buzkashi! It was important that we continued the personal stories of the players through the wintertime as the harshness of the winter has a huge impact on their lives. A couple of years ago it was a devastating -26 degrees with at least 4 feet of snow in the mountain villages. Today the temperature in Dushanbe is somewhere around +15 with not a snowflake on the streets. Heading off to the mountains to get the stories there. Will post pictures soon.
Jimmy
December 30th, 2009
Jimmy Bustos is serving as Director of Photography for Buzkashi! He joined Director Najeeb Mirza for his previous film when they shot in the neighboring country of Afghanistan for the film called The Sweetest Embrace: Return to Afghanistan. We’ll catch up more with Jimmy in future blogs.
Najeeb
December 30th, 2009
Shooting high above the town of Garm in the Rasht Valley, Najeeb Mirza is Director as well as one of the cameramen for Buzkashi! More on Najeeb later