The film "Earth and Ashes" (Terre et Cendres, also known by its original title Khâkestar-o-Khâk), the winner of the Regard vers l’avenir prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, will premiere in the United States on Saturday, June 19, at 9:30 p.m. at Southgate Cinema in Northfield. The film is 105 minutes long and has English subtitles. It is being shown as part of Carleton's Reunion weekend festivities, and is free and open to the public.
The film is produced by Dimitri de Clercq, a member of the Carleton class of 1989, and is directed by Afghani filmmaker Atiq Rahimi. The film was adapted from a novel written by Rahimi and set during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Shown at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section, this fable on the devastating loss, redemption and perseverance of the human spirit in the face of the atrocities of war also was nominated for the Caméra d’Or prize. The film will be shown this fall at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The film tells of the distress of a man, Dastaguir, and his grandson, Yassin, whose family is killed in a bombing raid on their village. They take to the road to announce the bad news to Yassin's father, Mourad, who works in a distant mine. "Time in the story is suspended time. The past and the future take fragmented shape in the characters' spirits," says Rahimi. "It's in this time-space continuum of the present that scenes from the past rush back. It's the characters' waiting and doubt that characterizes the drama of the film."
A Variety magazine review said of the film, "Sorrowful but rigorously spare, Rahimi's feature debut tracks a family patriarch on an arduous journey in war-torn Afghanistan, accompanied by his young grandson, to bear bad news to the child's father at a remote mine. The picture effortlessly marries art house Iranian and Middle Eastern cinema with more Western inflections."
De Clercq was born in Belgium in 1967, and spent his childhood in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. After leaving Carleton, he studied at New York University's Tisch School of Arts, where he majored in film direction and production. He is co-founder of a production company, Nomad Films, with his father, Jacques de Clercq.
