Theres actually a logical path, Buckley told EW.
It all started with a trip to Africa for The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Theres a worldwide crisis going on with refugees right now.
Credit: Bertrand Calmeau
Buckley staged his shoot in South Africa Somalia would have been too dangerous.
From there we sent somebody out to tape some boys doing improv stuff.
And the two boys who I cast, they just had something.
Lewis Jacobs/NBC
Ive done enough casting to know that.
Not only were the boys illiterate, but neither could swim.
All of that needed to be taught before they could even start shooting.
Buckley said he realized not only will they not wear that, they will not get near that.
Theyre not messing around.
You have to take things very seriously there is a lot at stake.
The tale ofAsadis elegant, funny, tragic and moving.
We werent exploiting anybody.
Buzkashi Boyswas shot entirely in Kabul over 16 days in February 2011.
Finding young Afghans to play Rafi and Ahmad presented a more challenging task than casting in the U.S. For the role of Ahmad, French cast Jawanmard Paiz, the son of an Afghan filmmaker.
It will be the first time to the U.S. for both of them.
I remembered thinking that kids had a lot more common sense than I did.
Its a little bit like that show,Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader.
They just knew all these things that I had forgotten.
Id become too jaded.
There was something interesting about remembering those things again through a childs eyes, Christensen told EW.
Writing the script was one thing, getting the right child actress for the film was quite another.
But there was one audition he knew he was looking forward to Dora the Explorerherself, Fatima Ptacek.
Her favorite movies are thrillers and darker movies anyway, so there was a never a problem with that.
And she loved it.
I wanted to give my own interpretation to the metaphysical figure of Death, Van Avermaet said.
How can I interpret that kind of symbolic figure in a way that hadnt been done before?
I thought, Why can Death not be like an art collector?
InDeath of a Shadow, Nathan traps shadows using a bizarre, steampunk-esque camera.
Death then displays the shadows on his walls like art.
Nathans camera was designed and constructed by Sophie Duque, a Belgian art director.
He is currently developing a project with a sci-fi take on memories.
My grandfather sort of lived ten lives in one, England said.
He was stationed in Italy with the British Army where he met my grandmother.
That line is in the film.
And thats what triggered the beginning ofHenry.
But how the 29-year-old (at the time) filmmaker would choose to tell the story was another question.
I didnt ever want to do it from the point of view of the family.
I realized we were traveling through his souvenirs and memories.
The bi-lingual director struggled with the choice between doing a French-language or English-language film.
The first draft came out in French, England said.
I thought about translating it, but then I started thinking about actors.
One of the reasons that Im lucky enough to be at the Oscars is Mr. Poirier.
