In If Luck Will Come, Danish director Camille Bildsøe observes two Afghan children navigating the increasingly narrow space between childhood freedom and adult responsibility under Taliban rule. Following its world premiere at CPH:DOX, the documentary screened at the Reykjavík International Film Festival (RIFF), where it scooped the A Different Tomorrow Award (see the news).

Cineuropa: In If Luck Will Come, a circus offers Afghan children a space for creativity and freedom. How did the project begin, and how did you find Zahra and Zalgai, the girl and boy at its centre?
Camille Bildsøe: The circus was founded by a Danish woman and an Iranian man who’d had to flee Afghanistan when the Taliban returned to power in 2021. The Danish founder contacted Elk Film because she wanted someone to document what was happening. I had previously made a film about the Palestinian circus, so I was approached.

My cinematographer and I first went to Afghanistan in 2022. I quickly noticed Zahra because of her rebellious energy, which reminded me of myself when I was younger. Initially, the film was going to focus on girls, but on our second trip, we realised how rarely we hear about Afghan boys, whose lives are also incredibly difficult. Then we met Zalgai. He had so much emotion in his face that I immediately wanted to understand what was behind it.

The film unfolds in three chapters, each marking another year in Zahra and Zalgai’s lives, from the age of 12 to 14. What begins as a portrait of childhood gradually takes on the tension of a countdown. How did this structure emerge?
The structure partly emerged because, on our last trip to Afghanistan, the Taliban told us we couldn't return. Until then, I had hoped to follow Zahra for several more years. Being forced to stop created this pressure-cooker feeling as their situation gradually worsened. The chapters allowed us to capture the playfulness of their childhood at 12 and how that playfulness gradually faded. I'm drawn to films driven more by emotion than plot, and this structure helped give that emotional progression a clearer form.

The movie’s visual language finds moments of beauty and playfulness amid poverty and oppression, without diminishing the harshness of the children's reality. How did you and cinematographer Jonas Fogh develop this visual approach?
Our main rule was to shoot at the children's eye level, so you feel you're with them, rather than an adult observing them. We filmed what they wanted to show us. You enter this whimsical world of childhood, which they somehow manage to preserve despite their devastating surroundings. We also wanted to move away from stereotypical Western images of Afghanistan – burqas, machine guns and calls to prayer – and show another side of the country, its beauty and colour.

The Taliban remain largely in the off-screen space, yet their presence and the pressure they exert are constantly felt, particularly through sound.
I wasn't interested in giving the Taliban any screen time, even though they really wanted to be on camera. We were interested in the children. Instead, we used the sounds of helicopters and the radios you hear as they drive around, so you sense something frightening in the distance without having to see it.

Documentary filmmaking always involves ethical choices, but working with children in such extreme circumstances makes such decisions particularly complex. How did you strike a balance between telling their story and protecting them?
Ethics are something I don't compromise on. Our interpreter was also a child psychologist, and every day, I asked Zahra and Zalgai whether they wanted to film and whether they thought it would be fun. If they didn't, we didn't film. We also worked with security and cultural advisers, including Afghan filmmakers, to protect the children, their families and our Afghan team, and to ensure we understood the cultural context. We excluded some more critical scenes because they could have put people at risk.

It was important to be honest with the children and their families about what we could and couldn't do for them. I can't take them out of their situation, however much I would like to. It's difficult to talk about how hard filming was for us because we could always leave. But as filmmakers, we can show what is happening and tell the stories of people whose voices have been taken away. We also organise fundraisers for the families at screenings.

You have said that the film is not particularly plot-driven. Perhaps its strongest driving force is instead the anger it gradually generates. What do you hope audiences take away from it?
I really hope people get fucking angry and start talking about what is happening. It has been crazy to see how little attention Afghanistan receives. Europe and the Western world were deeply involved there for more than 20 years, and now there is so little interest in what happens to the people left behind. The film is travelling around the world, which means many people will see it. Some love it; others find it too slow because of our approach to storytelling. But I'm very proud of it.