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Ottawa XPress
October 30, 2008 
The forgotten boys
T.S. Warren
Search for lost Afghan families makes for compelling cinema
Emotions run as deep as the churning mountain rivers crossed in Ottawa filmmaker Najeeb Mirza's The Sweetest Embrace: Return to Afghanistan, an intimate and intensely cinematic documentary screening this Saturday at the 19th annual One World Film Festival.
"I really wanted to tell a story about the Afghans that would connect them from a human perspective," Mirza explains in a phone interview. "When you feel the emotion, you realize they're just us in different circumstances."
The Hour
August 21st, 2008
The best of the fest
Anna Phelan
A desert home in The Sweetest Embrace
The FFM shows why it's still a crowd-pleaser
Though the World Film Festival showcases international filmmaking, it's also a rare opportunity to see Canadian films that might otherwise go unnoticed.
This year, as usual, Canada has a strong selection of documentary submissions that are highly recommended. From the NFB comes the emotionally charged The Sweetest Embrace: Return to Afghanistan, about Soorgul and Amir, two young Afghans who haven't seen their parents in over 15 years, since they were sent to Tajikistan as boys during the Soviet occupation. Soorgul eventually settled in Canada, and he and Amir decide to travel back to Afghanistan to search for the parents. Shot in traditional NFB verité style, this extraordinary film gives insight into an Afghanistan outside the 11 o'clock news.
Fast Forward
September 25, 2008
Bittersweet embrace
by M.D. Stewart in Film Reviews
Ottawa filmmaker documents the homecoming odyssey of two of Afghanistan’s forgotten boys
It goes without saying that anyone ambitious and courageous enough to undertake shooting a documentary on a shoestring budget in war-ravaged Afghanistan is well aware of the inherent danger. Still, having made the arduous journey from Kabul to the placid hills of Feyzabad in the country’s northeast, director Najeeb Mirza and cameraman Jimmy Bustos thought the danger was, more or less, behind them. “We thought we had come to this place of serenity,” Mirza recalls. “We were standing outside the guest house, looking over the mountains, and we were thinking ‘what would be the best spot to go and shoot from and get a nice picture of this town?’ At that very moment, the biggest explosion I have ever heard or felt took place, just near by. It was so strong that the waves shook the insides of your body, and you could feel the organs shift.”
Prairie Messenger
November 19, 2008
SCREENINGS AND MEANINGS
by Gerald Schmitz
...Thinking of that, imagine how you would feel as a refugee returning to your homeland after an absence of 16 years? (Male life expectancy in Afghanistan is less than three times that.) On the Saturday before the US election, and the day before President Obama’s grandmother died, I saw Najeeb Mirza’s moving 75-minute documentary The Sweetest Embrace: Return to Afghanistan as part of Ottawa’s One World Film Festival. The movie, a co-production of the National Film Board with 48-year-old Mirza’s Oxus Apertura Films, premiered at the Montreal film festival in August and has also been shown at Calgary’s festival, among others.
Calgary Herald
September 24, 2008
Calgarian's film searches for lost Afghan families
Eric Volmers
Spotlight
The Sweetest Embrace: The Return to Afghanistan will have its Alberta premiere on Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Eau Claire as part of the Calgary International Film Festival.
As is often the case with documentary films, one of the most telling scenes in Najeeb Mirza's The Sweetest Embrace seems to have been captured almost by accident.
The film -- which follows the often heart-breaking journey of two former "forgotten boys" of Afghanistan to find their long-estranged families -- has a rare moment of comic relief as our heroes travel through a war-ravaged Kabul in a shaky van with bald tires and some seemingly scary fellow passengers.
A severe-looking, bearded man stares down the film's two subjects -- the now Calgary-based Amir Alamunbek and Soorgul (Roy) Sakai -- and asks whether their time away from home has eroded their faith.
"At that time I was scared of those guys," says Sakai, who is now back in Calgary and working as a security guard. "In most cases, if you had dialogue with these people and say something outside of the framework, especially about religion, there could be big trouble."
Kempton Lam’s Film Blog
September 13, 2008
The Sweetest Embrace - Chat with Najeeb Mirza - 2008 CIFF
Kempton Lam
I woke up bright and early this morning to have a wide ranging chat with Najeeb Mirza, director of The Sweetest Embrace: Return to Afghanistan, about the different challenges in making of the documentary and the danger of making film in places like Afghanistan, etc. This documentary takes you on a beautiful and yet dangerous journey by Soorgul and Amir to see their families who they haven’t seen for 16 years.
Here is my audio chat with Najeeb (mp3 file). You can alsostream the audio interview here.
This is a very well made documentary, highly recommended. Screening time of the film is available from 2008 Calgary International Film Festival here.
http://kempton.wordpress.com/category/interviewbykempton-arts/
Row Three podcast
December 4, 2008
After the Credits Episode 48
Interview: The Sweetest Embrace Director Najeeb Mirza
by Marina Antunes
Marina speaks with director Najeeb Mirza whose film The Sweetest Embrace: Return to Afghanistan is playing at the Whistler Film Festival.
To download show directly, paste this link into your downloader:
http://www.rowthree.com/audio/AfterTheCredits-Episode48.MP3
Montreal Gazette
August 21st, 2008
***1/2
Michael Shenker
Part road movie, part coming-home story, this feature-length documentary follows two young men as they return to Afghanistan in search of their families. Amir and Soorgul were torn from their childhoods 16 years ago by occupying Soviet forces, who shipped them out of the country. We see flashbacks of Soviet tanks, hear radio reports of today’s war and soak in the breathtaking landscapes as the two men try to make it home on very different paths.
Vue Weekly
November 6, 2008
The Sweetest Embrace
Omar Mouallem
It’s easy to feel exhausted after watching the grueling journey that two Canadians named Soorgul and Amir make back to their homeland of Afghanistan, which they were driven out of 16 years prior during the Soviet occupation. Afghanistan is portrayed in both a harsh and beautiful light as constant news reports of violent attacks are heard amidst the beautiful landscapes that have not yet been completely ruined. While Soorgul and Amir are both very driven in reuniting with their families, the film often catches them at moments of vulnerability. The Sweetest Embrace is not only a journey to be once again wrapped in the arms of one’s mother but to be also wrapped in the arms of an entire community. OM
