Sonia Nassery Cole

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rR8qC9gaVo[/youtube]

The touching account of a family’s struggle to survive in war-torn Kabul.

On a trip to Kabul, Sonia Nassery Cole discovered Farouk, an eight-year-old boy. In Farouk’s story she realized that history would disappear in the dusty street realities of Kabul’s devastated cityscape. The boy was a symbolic of the struggle for survival that exists throughout the war-torn, but still proud country. Sonia organized a crew of freelance cameramen to capture a day in the life of this boy.

Background

Not long ago on a trip to Kabul, Sonia Nassery Cole discovered eight-year-old Farouk, a  boy who has come to symbolize the struggle for survival that exists throughout Sonia’s war-torn, but still proud home country of Afghanistan. Drawing on her natural ability to pull people together, Sonia quickly assembled a crew of freelance cameramen to capture a day in the life of this small boy, Sonia’s documentary The Breadwinner has touched and inspired audiences all over the world.

Synopsis

Farouk is the primary provider for his family of six. He and his family live in a small one-room house in the distance suburbs of Kabul. Their only amenities are a small kitchen area and bathroom. Six days a week Farouk gets up at 5:30 am to leave his home and walks 40 minutes to catch the first of two buses into the center of Kabul to attend school and sell calendars to earn enough money to feed his family in the middle of busy, dusty streets. He doesn’t return home until well after dark, ten to twelve hours later.