Discoveries from Afghanistan World Cinema

An Afghan mother and a US filmmaker, connected through one stray bullet, forge a surprising friendship amidst America's longest war.

A mild-mannered farm laborer becomes enraged when the landowner's spoiled son forces the laborer's wife to sing for a foreign guest.

Azim, an afghan refugee, who works at the municipality at night, lives in Tehran along with his family. Being the head of entire family, he has to choose between his own life and his mother’s whom he has always claimed as the most important one in his life.

Afghanistan is one of the last places on earth where photographers used a simple type of instant camera called the kamra-e-faoree for means of making a living. The hand-made wooden camera is both camera and darkroom in one and generations of Afghans have had their portraits taken with it, usually for identity photographs. At one stage it was even outlawed when former rulers of Afghanistan, the Taliban, banned photography, forcing photographers to hide or destroy their tools. In this film, Qalam Nabi, one of the last remaining box camera photographers in Kabul demonstrates how to use his camera.

A woman is raped. Instead going after her attacker, the law and society imprison the victim.

With astounding access, Norwegian journalist and filmmaker Anders Hammer captures the rapidly changing situation in Afghanistan as the Taliban retake control of the country. Re-installing an all-male parliament, banning girls from going to school and restricting women’s rights to work, the Taliban soon find themselves faced with the emergence of groups who bravely take their protests to the streets. Amid all the uncertainty, Hammer documents the female-led protests, the supporters and enforcers of Taliban rule and the mixed response of people across the country, as one regime comes to end and another takes power.

For centuries the Afghan people threw back all invaders. But in 1979, the Russians invaded with planes and tanks. 5 million Afghans fled the country. 300,000 lucky ones made it to North America. They escaped the Russians but not themselves. This film depicts the lives of the members of two families in New York.

Akhtar is a good humored working class man who is nicknamed The Joker, and tries to rise on the social ladder during the 1970s in Kabul.

Salim Shaheen's first film from Afghanistan

Twenty-five years ago, when the Taliban took over Afghanistan and music was banned, Gholam Nabi and his family suffered a lot of oppression. He and his son manufacture the rabab, a string instrument with origins dating back to the seventh century, and one of Afghanistan’s national musical instruments.

The first of George Gittoes Love City trilogy made with actors and crew in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. A young filmmaker falls in love with Jasmin, the daughter of a former mujahedin who happens to own Love City, a Jalalabad wedding hall, but he opposes their love match. Eventually true love wins out.

The debut feature film from Afghan auteur Salim Shaheen, shot with an old Z7 camera. “I spent 250 Afghanis (Dh13) making it in black and white with no sound.” He jokes about trying to flog copies for twice the amount it cost him to produce — and discovered that people actually loved it, and bought him out.

Afghan beauty girl wants to be a model. But all his dreams are destroyed.

The second of George Gittoes Love City trilogy made with actors and crew in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. In the second film the focus shifts to Jasmin’s older sister Asma, who is studying in Peshawar with her Afghan-American friend Ghuty. Unfortunately they are kidnapped by Taliban terrorists while returning home from the wedding. Enlisting the help of Karim, a reputedly mobbed-up restaurateur, her father orchestrates their rescue. Unfortunately Asma falls for Karim in the process, forgetting about cousin Ikram, who has long carried a torch for her. Of course, getting involved with the wrong sort of man is exponentially worse in Afghanistan. However, Asma is not without her own resources. As the host of a groundbreaking issue-oriented talk show, she has a forum to challenge the caddish and corrupt Karim.

A 10-year-old boy in a pink salwar kameez stands near a dune-coloured wall under a powder-blue sky. He frowns and gesticulates, conversing in stops and starts with the heavens or at least with the gusting wind because you don’t see his kite at first, and the string is so fine you can’t see that either. What you see is a body interacting with unknown forces, pulling to the left, the right, up, down, quick, over to the left again, and so on. Here is not only the body of the boy but the body of the world in deft mutual mimesis, amounting to ‘the mastery of non-mastery’ which is the greatest game of all: a guide, a goal, a strategy –all in one– for dealing with man’s domination of nature (including human nature). Afghan kite fighters often attach small blades to their kite strings, or coat them with ground glass and glue, the better to down their opponents’. Under the Taliban, kite-flying was banned.

Two convicts - a veteran smuggler and a vengeful surburbanite - escape from prison while chained by the wrists.

The film introduces us to an Afghan woman who wants to travel to another city and an American woman who mistreats her.

A group of children hold hands in a circle. The child in the middle plays the lamb, the one outside is the wolf. The wolf tries to catch the lamb by breaking through the human fence, but the kids crouch quickly down, blocking him with lowered arms. If the wolf does breach the circle, the lamb can duck out of it, while the kids now try to keep the wolf imprisoned inside. At times the cheeky lamb provokes the wolf, rushing out of safety almost into his path and darting back in. The lamb may be caught, ending that round of the game, inside or outside the fold; but these kids prefer close shaves, the dramatic prolongation of suspense.

Shooting on location in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, director Salar Pashtoonyar uses a thought-provoking yet powerfully humane hybrid of documentary and fiction to delve deep into the experience of a woman forced to the edge of her society.

A man who advises his son about the highs and lows of life — its beauty and ugliness, desires and dreams, shame and honor, lies and truth, negligence and awareness, temptation and virtue — eventually finds himself entangled in the very things he warned against.

When war breaks out, borders separate people from one another; love remains on both sides of the borders.

Mahwash: A Documentary Film follows the extraordinary journey of Mahwash, Afghanistan’s pioneering female singer, whose voice transcends borders, exile, and political turmoil. Encouraged by her devoted husband, Farooq, she rises to fame despite cultural barriers, only to face severe backlash when her identity is revealed. As she dreams of a final concert in her homeland, the Taliban’s rise shatters her hopes, banning music and silencing artists. Yet, Mahwash refuses to be silenced. Through intimate performances and Farooq’s unwavering support, she keeps her melodies alive. Honored in Washington, D.C., she delivers a powerful final performance—a tribute to her homeland, an act of resistance, and a testament to music’s enduring power. Her voice, once exiled, becomes immortal.

Mahbouba Seraj had what every other Afghan wanted. A US passport and protected passage through the frenzied masses that had descended on Kabul International Airport in late August 2021, desperate to flee Afghanistan and the brutal Taliban regime that had just seized power, following the US withdrawal. But this 73 year old Afghan women’s rights activist refused to leave. Who would protect her girls in the country’s last remaining shelter for abused women? Who would fight for the rights of women who had been promised a future for 20 years only to be abandoned by the West? This is the story of Mahbouba Seraj. A Pashtun with royal lineage named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2021 and shortlisted for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize. She believes her responsibility is to help the women of Afghanistan now forced to live with systemic oppression in what is widely considered the most serious women’s rights crisis in the world today.

Graphically depicts the brutalities on Afghan prisoners in an Iranian camp, Safaid Sang (White Stone) near the Iranian-Afghan border. Based on true life accounts from Afghan prisoners.

Hamid, a rich car salesman from Kabul, is plagued by nightmares. Are these just figments of his imagination or is he hiding some dark secrets from his past?

The story of an old, lonesome talisman-writer, who earns his money with prophecy and has already lost the hope for acknowledgement in life, but suddenly finds himself as a messiah as a result of the rumours in the village.

Two men travel a shared road. One acts with honesty and gratitude, the other with deceit and disgrace. Though their destination is identical, their hearts are not. When the journey reaches its final turn, only the truth will decide who remains, and who is undone

Sediq and Yousof work for the small electricity distribution sub-station in the district of Char Qala-e-Wazirabad. From day to day, they have to deal with the electricity shortage and repair the derelict installations. The film follows them as they're working and reveals life in a popular neighbourhood of Kabul.

Story of an artist who loves a spoiled rich girl, who marries a wealthy man instead, only to find out that he's a gangster. Both artist and girl get embroiled in gang schemes.

In the video Dome (2005), one is confronted with the inexplicable behavior of a boy, his face raised toward the sky, who turns round and round, trancelike, inside a roofless ramshackle building. The camera slowly zooms in on him, assuming his position and action, so that the viewer, too, experiences dizziness. The video is largely silent; the only sound effects are chirping birds, suggesting salvation, and rumbling aircraft, evoking imminent danger. The piece ends exactly where it commenced, avoiding any clear pronouncement regarding the boy’s motivation or his fate.

Two refugee siblings are separated in different parts of the world. The impossibility to meet in person due the pandemic, forces them to share their grief of their mother’s death in diaspora, through an online call. In their grief, long kept secrets unfold and threatens their relation to tip over into hatred and guilt.

A New Psychological Documentary About Children

A gullible man, once manipulated, rises with clarity and vengeance, determined to dismantle the liars who used him

Since the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban have imposed a reign of terror that is particularly brutal towards women. Risking their own lives and those of their loved ones, groups of women are protesting against the regime, and standing up for the right to freedom, education and security. The filmmaker follows and interviews two of these women, Reshmin and her sister.

At one of the many checkpoints in the city, policemen take turns, exposed to all dangers, far from their families, sheltered in containers where they share their meagre meals, and try to steal a few hours sleep.

The postman’s inextricable difficulties as he does his rounds in the streets of Kabul, where addresses are often mysterious and deliveries akin to treasure hunts.

On a wide, gravelly mountain road, earth-coloured dwellings in the background, small boys scamper behind tyres of different thickness and circumference, beating them onwards with a stick. A donkey brays in sympathy. The thin, flexible tyres of bicycles are the hardest to keep upright, especially when performing turns (slowing and tilting the rubber hoop without loss of momentum) before racing back, sometimes in competition with another, cheered on by their companions, towards the starting line.

A tyrannical father with three sons is haunted by his eldest son after he is murdered in a robbery gone wrong.

Rayhan is a student who had his life together in Afghanistan but then lost his family in an attack. This made him flee to London to have a better life. Here, he faces a lot of hardships where he begins to learn the true meaning of life.

Filmed the night after the Taliban’s re-taking of Kabul, Takbir evokes the lasting material and cultural legacies of Afghanistan’s many foreign occupations.

“Saralish” means arranged marriage. In rural Iran, men dominate. A little girl is exchanged by another one, not even knowing what is happening to her, and she is now the wife to an old man. And the mothers have no say in this. But when an afeghani woman who has been educated in Germany returns to solve her own marriage arrangement that took place before she was even born, the situation of all the women there only gets worse. In the meantime, the boys play with the remains of war but also begin discovering new paths. An alert to human rights situation.

A Pashtun villager boy visits Kabul for the first time ever.

It narrates the story of violence against women and also reflects the culture of North People of Afghanistan.

Marefat high school morning assembly: the girls shift with a few boys, and faculty entering the school courtyard at 5:30 am, gathering, lining up while Sufi songs play in the background, then singing their school song, “the heat that has no love, pain, or generosity is not a heart” being one of the lyrics (this line of the song was used for the overall installation project title), then walking up the stairs to their classes. At Laisa-e-Maarifat (Marefat School), Dasht-e-Barchi, Kabul, Afghanistan. Video segment of "The Heart That Has No Love/Pain/Generosity is Not a Heart" art installation.

As a refugee, Homayoon Zarian has been in Afghanistan for eight years now and his future looks bleak. His situation and that of many others shows how severely the humanitarian organizations and mechanisms built after World War Second need revision and reform.

Janan, a simple and naive young man with short-term memory loss, is sent out of his home to buy salt. But along the way, he becomes caught in unexpected conflicts with people from nearby villages, turning a simple task into a chaotic journey

An Afghan man and his wife attempt to cross the border to reach Europe illegally. After many difficulties and dangers, it is time to give birth despite the complicated situation in which they find themselves. Surrounded by policemen, they will have to be very quiet.

An anti-war film in the tradition of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica as well as John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’, the candid and powerful Ukraine Guernica – Artist War takes us behind the battle lines and into the lives of the artists confronting Russia’s march on Ukraine and Afghanistan following the withdrawal of foreign forces. From the ashes of unspeakable tragedy and destruction, new creative works are born, including projects completed at the former House of Culture in Irpin, Ukraine, and at the Yellow House Art School in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

The third of George Gittoes Love City trilogy made with actors and crew in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. In this third chapter, Ghuty takes her turn in the spotlight. Also a media trailblazer, she hosts a radio call-in show devoted to love stories and song dedications. When two star-crossed lovers use her show to tell their tragic tale, her ratings take-off. Their story takes on additional significance for her, as she pursues love with Zaki, a fixer working with the American military, against her parents’ wishes.

An ambulance company and its tireless heroes doing their job day and night in the chaotic streets and traffic jams of Kabul. A team made up of a driver and a doctor, who, having lost a child in a bomb attack, fights every day to save others’lives.

There is a suitor for a little Afghan girl called Nazpari from Germany. Up to that point, no one has seen him. When the day comes, Nazpari understands that the suitor is an older adult.