Leapfrog Productions

In the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan, a widowed father expects his only son to follow in his footsteps. Darra Adam Khel is home to the ethnic Pashtuns. The local industry is the handcrafting of firearms. It has been this way since long before the war on terror. Eleven-year-old Niaz Afridi works with his father learning how to make and test weapons just as Sher Alam learnt from his father before him. But Niaz doesn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps. He wants to go to school.

The highway of the title is a 2,000 mile dirt road in Kazakhstan. Along this route, a traveling family circus journeys in their crowded hand-cranked bus, stopping in villages. The filmmaker accompanies the Tadjibajevs, capturing their quarrels, performances, and intimate moments.