Prolific and exuberant, Shaheen often speaks in the third person or as the on-screen personas developed in his 125 ultra-low-budget films."It was the most beautiful day of my life!" Shaheen cries out from his home in Kabul.The film presented at Cannes was a documentary called "The Prince of Nothingwood," produced by journalist Sonia Kronlund, which followed Shaheen as he made his 111th film.
Shaheen fled to Pakistan during the Taliban's first brutal regime of 1996 to 2001, when cinema and television were banned and the arts severely restricted. "I was meant to leave the day of the explosion at the airport," says Shaheen, referring to an August 26 suicide bombing by an Islamic State group affiliate that killed more than one hundred people.
"All the actors and actresses from my films are currently in France... I want to go to somewhere I can resume my art and cinema," he says.