Sonia Nassery Cole, director of Afghanistan’s 2010 Oscar submission The Black Tulip, is lining up to direct The Last Piano In Afghanistan for Citizen Skull And Shadowplay Features.
The producers have announced the project in Cannes, where they are meeting with sales agents ahead of a late 2023 shoot in Morocco.
The Last Piano In Afghanistan is based on the life of ethnomusicologist Dr. Ahmad Sarmast, who grew up loving music and relocated from Afghanistan to Australia under Taliban rule, only to return home after the US-led invasion in the early 2000s.
Back in his native country, Sarmast launched the Afghanistan National Institute of Music and continued to teach children about the history and value of global music, overcoming multiple death threats and a suicide bombing attack by the Taliban.
Lloyd Levin, Beatriz Levin, and Belen Gonzalez Blanco of Shadowplay Features (The Mauritanian) are producing alongside Matt Prater and Mark Myers of Citizen Skull (Street Gang: How We Got To Sesame Street), and Nassery Cole of Breadwinner Productions (The Bread Winner).
Ryan Dingus befriended Sarmast and spent five years researching the screenplay.
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