From the Film Maker:

I was keen to transpose the story of Manet’s painting to more recent times, so I chose Kabul as the setting, originally planning to set the animation in the periphery of the Taliban's gruesome execution of President Najubullah in 1996.

However, rather than immerse myself in the horrific realities of Taliban violence in Afghanistan, I chose to seek refuge in the childish humour of the animated cartoon. Thus the victim of the extremists' oppression, now very much an independent Afghan, has probably committed a trivial crime and is able to elude his incompetent gaolers.

Eventually, he is able to use a device of the Taliban's own oppression to effect his escape. As I feel sympathy and kinship with the Afghan people and it was not my intention to mock them and their plight, I hope the light-hearted caricaturing will be taken in the spirit it was meant, and that the only criticism inferred is that of those who use violence to impose their political outlook on others.

Thomas Bristow

A piece inspired by Edouard Manet, The Execution of Maximilian, about 1867-8