Alternative View Season – The Miscreants of Taliwood

The Miscreants of Taliwood takes us on an extraordinary journey to another forbidden zone  –  the remote Tribal Belt of  the North West Frontier of Pakistan. Flash point for WorldNews.

Director George Gittoes gathers an astonishing cast of characters, as they dodge the anti-entertainment forces, and are caught in the current of events which are turning back the clock on the digital age.

To enter this world, Gittoes dresses in local costume, and agrees to become an actor in the low budget Pashto Telie Movie industry.  Teaming up with Pashto action and comedy stars,  they make the  ‘last telie movie’ – an over the top action drama, played out in what must be one of the craziest of film locations – just a cave or two away from where the most wanted man in the world runs  ‘Terror Central’.

In this full-of-surprises doc-drama blend, the Telie Movies, with their hilarious adaptation of American movie culture – meets village story teller and Bollywood style – are intercut with the real life drama of Gittoes’ extreme journey into the no-go zone of the Taliban controlled Tribal Belt.

As the Director gets into stride as a Telie-Movie bad-guy, and the drama script hits its punch lines, Pakistan hits real life meltdown.

The Miscreants of Taliwood plays with a question relevant to us all: what is real, what is unreal and what is too real, in a post digital world? And who controls it?

Directed by George Gittoes
93 mins
2009