A three-hour flight from Paris, a part of Afghanistan emerges like a mirage in the Moroccan desert. Hamid-Karzaï airport can be seen behind a heavy gate bristling with gatehouses and barbed wire, a perfect replica of the one I have used for two decades during my reporting in the country. Everything is there: the dusty Dari sign that marks the entrance, the line of old buses parked on the side, bearded men, old kalachs, up to the milky sky that covers Kabul most of the time.
All that is missing, to complete this familiar setting, are the majestic peaks of the Hindu Kush. “Are you okay, not too out of place?” » jokes Roschdy Zem, disguised as a special forces commando, rangers on his feet, weapon in hand and bulletproof vest loaded with magazines. A voice rises before the beginning clap: “If there is something that is not Afghan, now is the time to say it!” »
For this film reconstituting the lightning capture of Kabul by the Taliban on August 15, 2021, a historic moment when the country will suddenly plunge back into obscurantism, director Martin Bourboulon, an admitted stickler for detail, wanted everything to be “immediately plausible”. “From the weathered color of a suit to the original license plates, to the length of the beards that sparked 2,000 emails,” he says, half-joking.
It was necessary to reconstitute the bus convoy of more than 300 meters that Mohamed Bida had organized towards the airport under American control.
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© Julien Faure
For those who know Afghanistan, a country like no other, the challenge was daunting. A fiction certainly, but with a scenario steeped in the rigor of the documentary exercise, discreet camera and sober staging, “because such an event requires”, he believes. “It’s cinema, but it’s more than that,” agrees Dimitri Rassam, who, after producing films for the general public, such as “The Three Musketeers”, did not hesitate to get involved in this unique project. , while Afghanistan has rather disappeared from the media radar.
The film opens with general rescue
“We all had this visceral need to translate the heartbreak experienced by thousands of people suddenly torn from their lives,” he explains. The film opens with the general escalation at the moment when the insurgents are at the gates of Kabul, its inhabitants preparing for a civil war which will ultimately not take place. Between the armored walls of the French embassy, the crusher is operating at full speed. Confidential documents, employee lists, hard drives: everything must disappear.
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The film team insisted on hiring real Afghans alongside the 500 Moroccan extras. The candidates did not rush to take on the role of the Taliban, responsible for their shattered lives. “Playing their own executioners seemed terrifying to them,” confides Roschdy Zem, who chatted with them between takes. There is one who walked for weeks to escape them, another who bears the scars they left on his back. These are courses that command respect. »
Before filming, the Franco-Moroccan actor had fragmentary knowledge of Afghanistan, between stories from Kessel, memories of the assassination of the charismatic Massoud and these “crazy images that we all saw on TV”: fighters hirsute people taking over the presidential palace, the apocalypse scenes around the airport with these desperate people clinging to the wings of planes leaving without them.
Roschdy Zem and Martin Bourboulon, director of another French blockbuster: “The Three Musketeers”.
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© Julien Faure
“13 Days, 13 Nights” is less an action film than one of tension, the real-time story of a shift, which questions how everyone reacts in an emergency situation. Or how ordinary men can reveal themselves in war. “We highlighted diplomatic prowess more than stunts,” claims Bourboulon. What interested me was as much the acts of bravery as the blues to stick as closely as possible to the story of Mohamed Bida. »
The book by this former police commander (“13 days, 13 nights. In the hell of Kabul”, ed. Denoël, 2022), who had the absurd idea of ending his career as head of security for the French embassy in Kabul, largely inspired the screenplay of the film. It is this man who took responsibility for sheltering within the French control – the last Western mission to remain open – nearly 500 civilians, mainly Afghans, many women and children, threatened by the return of the Islamists. With a major risk present in everyone's minds: that the latter will storm the site protected by Commander Bida and his ten elite police officers. While the evacuation plans fail one after the other, it is again he who will take the initiative to negotiate an exit ticket directly with the Taliban.
“Listening to him, he hasn’t done anything crazy,” laughs Roschdy Zem, who plays him on screen. I have met a lot of cops and thugs who are sometimes mythos, who add to it. He is quite the opposite: he minimizes what he did. Without this film, his courage would have gone unnoticed. »
“This role,” confides the actor, “is one of the most exciting challenges that have been offered to me. »
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© Julien Faure
Hero in spite of himself of this big production at 25 million euros shot on a set in the suburbs of Casablanca, the retired ex-commander walks there that evening with his all-purpose silhouette with palpable emotion. “Doesn’t it do you anything to be here?” » Chamber Martin Bourboulon, always worried to know “if we are right”.
Americans don't know how to do improv. They tipped their hat to us
Mohamed Bida
The person responds to having the disturbing impression of going “back in time three years”, a hint of sadness in his voice, still haunted by the faces of those he could not save. “We always say to ourselves that we could have done more,” he sighs. But we couldn’t evacuate an entire country…”
The suicide attack claimed by the Islamic State on August 26, 2021 near the airport, killing nearly 200 people, signaled the end of this incredible rescue operation carried out with the means at hand. The “French touch,” smiles Mohamed Bida, a clever mix of nerve and resourcefulness that has impressed even the State Department in Washington: “The Americans don’t know how to do improv. They took their hat off to us. »
Reminiscence of the scenes of chaos and unreal images that toured the world from August 15 to 30, 2021.
© Jérôme Prébois
We are filming the arrival of the bus convoy at Abbey Gate, the only access point to the airport grounds then guarded by 10,000 GIs on guard. Before the scene begins, we share a tagine in a tent with an extra dressed as an impressively realistic American soldier. Mohamed Bida's wife, Marie-Christine, is there, discreet, curious to discover this part of her husband's “breezy” existence.
“Even when he was at the BIS, I didn’t see him much,” she admits, smiling. The first year in Kabul was very complicated. But he was able to find the words to reassure me and I ended up getting used to it. » Until August 15, 2021. From the Louvre museum which she is visiting, she sends him a selfie in front of the Mona Lisa before turning off her phone to “preserve herself”. “I stopped myself from watching the news. » Over the 13 days and 13 nights that followed, French police, diplomats and soldiers saved 2,834 people. Since then, the emirate has celebrated its three years of reign and methodically continues its policy of erasing half of the population, immuring millions of women alive, decree after decree. The latest one now prohibits them from speaking in public.
With Lyna Khoudri, who plays Eva, a young French-Afghan translator.
© Jérôme Prébois
Of these five years spent in this country where he will probably never set foot again, Mohamed Bida denies any nostalgia. He now devotes himself to his three grandchildren and his orphaned niece. “I have plenty to keep me busy,” he jokes. Before setting off to work on writing another book… on Afghanistan.
