Maggie and Jean Paul wanted to make a difference.
And despite what must have seemed impossible, the couple headed to Afghanistan to spend their second honeymoon in Kabul. Maggie is a midwife and her husband is a clown doctor, both headed for what may be considered to be one of the least funny places on the planet.
“The guy Jean Paul is dedicating his life to using humor to heal people and entertain people,” said filmmaker Ian Hamilton, who heard of the couples travel plans and decided to tag along to document the experience.
“That’s a story, you’ve got romance and tragedy,” Hamilton said. “But it’s not until you actually go to Afghanistan that you are hit hard with the reality of how people live there.”
The couple has reached out and touched the lives of the children in Kabul, and with Ian’s help they are putting human faces in front of us. Faces that are often left out of the political and military discussion of a country usually referred to as not much more than a rocky terrain and terrorist hideout.
And beyond the perhaps coincidental political punch the film now delivers, there is the story of a couple unknown beyond their in circle of friends who decided they must step forward and help whomever they could in a place where that attitude is in desperately short supply.
The film Honeymoon in Kabul will play this Sunday at the Downtown Independent Theater during the Zero Film Festival, so named because all 117 films featured were made with no budget.
You read that right -- zero.
“I think that most of the interesting stories are the ones not being allowed to be shown anywhere,” said festival founder Richard Hooban.
All of the proceeds from Sunday’s screening of Honeymoon in Kabul will go directly to Hamilton’s charity to help the Afghan people.
