Jirga

PRODUCER 

JOHN MAYNARD

John is well known as a producer with an eye for talent, producing the debut feature films of a number of directors, including Jane Campion, Vincent Ward, Rowan Woods, Robert Connolly, Richard Roxburgh and Kasimir Burgess.

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In 2007 John received the AFI Award for Best Film for Romulus, My Father (co-produced with Robert Connolly) and in 1989 for The Navigator. John has had three films In Competition in Cannes (an unrivalled Australian record). With partner Bridget Ikin, he co-produced Jane Campion’s “An Angel At My Table”, winner of the ‘Silver Lion’ in Venice in 1990. “The Boys”, John’s first collaboration with producer Robert Connolly, debuted in Competition at Berlin in 1998. For many years, he was in partnership with Robert Connolly, in Arenafilm. He has been an active independent distributor in Australia and New Zealand for almost 40 years with his company Footprint Films having a reputation for creating innovative and cost effective marketing campaigns. In 2003 John was awarded an Honorary Master’s Degree at the Australian Film Television and Radio School for his “commitment, as a creative producer, to ground breaking independent cinema; for nurturing new Australian talent and reflecting diverse themes of social and cultural relevance”.

In 2005 the Australian Directors Guild awarded their highest honor to John, The Cecil Holmes Memorial Award for his support of directors and the ADG.

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In 2011 John established Felix Media with Bridget Ikin produce original screen-based works by artists.

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CAST

SAM SMITH

Former Australian Army soldier Mike Wheeler

Sam Smith is an Australian actor who works in film, television and theatre. His most recent roles include the HBO drama series The Leftovers and Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale. His past performances include lead roles in Ben Briand's Hammer Bay, winner of both the MTV Optus 180 Project and the Creative Annual Best Long Form Project; and Some Static Started, which was nominated for an Australian Directors Guild award.

SHER ALAM MISKEEN USTAD

Afghan taxi driver

Sher Alam Miskeen Ustad was the former chief Palace Guard of former Afghan President Mohammed Daoud, who was assassinated in 1978 by the communist opposition. Before the coup he was part of a small theatre group in Kabul. When the Russian army invaded the following year, Sher Alam joined the Mujahideen resistance and became renown for having decimated several Russian tanks with a single RPG launcher from a mountaintop. He was the only survivor when Russian helicopters responded and killed more than 30 of his friends. The first film he ever saw was ‘Rambo 3’ which lionized the Afghan mujahedin, many of whom would later become the Taliban. When the Taliban took power in the early nineties Sher Alam fled to Pakistan with his family. He now works in a sweet shop, playing his rabab (traditional lute) at local weddings in the frontier city of Kohat. Sher Alam played the father of the lead character in Gilmour’s Son of a Lion

(2008).

AMIR SHAH TALASH

English-speaking Taleb

Amir Shah Talash is an Afghan actor and producer based in Jalalabad. He is known for the action and thriller films he self-funds by working nights, unloading bags of cement. Talash has become a house-hold name in Afghanistan, particularly in Pashtun areas. He is trained in Taikwando, which he uses to fight off dozens of gangsters at a time, whenever he plays the hero. Talash works with Australian director George Gittoes at The Yellow House, his artist’s collective in Jalalabad. On Jirga, Amir Shah Talash played Sher Khan’s (the Taliban leader) right-hand man, and was also the local producer for the film.