Afghanistan: War without End? (2011)
Key decision makers reveal the inside story of how the West was drawn ever deeper into the Afghan war. Reporter John Ware charts the history of a decade of fighting and looks at when the conflict may end.
Key decision makers reveal the inside story of how the West was drawn ever deeper into the Afghan war. Reporter John Ware charts the history of a decade of fighting and looks at when the conflict may end.
A single female voice sings of waiting in her garden for her ‘dark-eyed sailor’ to return from war, bearing the other half of their token, a gimmel ring. Three veterans pass on the road as she waits, and she asks them: “When you were fighting in distant lands, did you think of the home you left?” In reply the veterans relate their recollections. The garden images in the accompanying film represent ‘home’, but also stand for a more general possibility of redemption, of the potential of the past to return at any time, disguised and changed, to renew the present: “Each moment of time is a garden gate,” the song goes, “Through it my love may walk.”
What happens when a group of hairdressers from America travel to Kabul with the intention of telling Afghan women how to do hair and makeup? This engaging, optimistic documentary tracks a unique development project: a shiny new beauty school, funded in part by beauty-industry mainstays, which sets out to teach the latest cutting, coloring, and perming techniques to practicing and aspiring Afghan hairdressers and beauticians. The American teachers, all volunteers, include three Afghan-Americans returning home for the first time in over twenty years. The Beauty Academy of Kabul offers a rare glimpse into Afghan women’s lives, and documents the poignant and often humorous process through which women with very different experiences of life come to learn about one another.
Stand up comedian Graham Elwood's journey physically, and emotionally, as he travels through Afghanistan's war zones to entertain the embattled U.S. troops.
After the United States mounted a covert mission to eliminate America's number-one terrorist target, celebration turned to mounting questions. Now, Peter Bergen obtains rare access to interview former CIA agents, Navy Seal operatives, and a Black Hawk pilot who reveal how the United States gathered the intelligence needed to pull off the surprise attack. He'll talk to White House and Pakistani intelligence officials, as well as neighbors of the Pakistani compound and eyewitnesses to the raid.
An Iranian diplomat who miraculously survived Taliban's raid on the Iranian consulate in Mazar E Sharif (Afghanistan) narrates his 19 days of hide and escape to reach Iran's borders meanwhile on the other side, the Iranian troops are preparing for retaliation.
Dubai - the city of controversies. Six individuals go through personal insecurities, cultural pressures, money issues and the hustle of staying true to who they are. In the world that says otherwise. Is it all really worth it ? The film touches upon Arab identity, female role in the world, family values, Islam.
When the Soviet troops entered Afghanistan in December 1979, Christophe de Ponfilly and Jérôme Bony made their first clandestine reportage in the Panjshir valley. "A valley against an empire" testifies to the beginning of the struggle of a young commander, Amah Shah Massoud.
A group of Kuchi children are living in a minefield around Bagram airfield, Afghanistan. They dig out anti-personal mines in order to sell the explosives to child workers mining in a Lappis Lazulli mine. The trajectory of the blue precious stones goes towards Tajikistan and China, through an area controlled by child soldiers. When they are not waging their own mini-wars in the daily madness of life in Afghanistan, the children are fleeing away in their personal fantasies and dreams, while the American soldiers are planning their retreat...
In 1979, after the Soviet Union attacked Afghanistan, millions of Afghans were forced to leave their homeland to save their lives, and in the meantime, a huge wave of them immigrated to Iran.
La vie devant elle is the diary of the exile of Elaha, a 14 year old Afghan girl, who films herself with a small camera to tell her story. Through her story, the film portrays the reality of children growing up on the road, tossed from place to place to flee conflicts in the hope of finding a normal life.
The British Regisseur Phil Grabsky has documented an Afghan boy's life for 10 years.
Jawed Taiman takes a distinct look at Afghanistan and lets the Afghan people have their say. En route through the different provinces, through urban and rural regions, in discussion with intellectuals and simple folk, politicians and Taliban fighters a multifaceted picture emerges of a country that is often portrayed as incomprehensible.
Against a backdrop of war and poverty, Out of the Ashes, traces the extraordinary journey of a team of young, Afghan men, as they chase a seemingly impossible dream, shedding new light on a nation beyond that of burqas, bombs, drugs and devastation. This feature-length documentary follows the Afghan cricket team in their quest against the odds to qualify for the 2011 World Cup, premiering at the Edinburgh International Film Festival on 17th June. Backed by BBC Storyville and Oscar-winning director and cricket fan, Sam Mendes, 'Out of the Ashes' follows the squad over two years as they go from playing in their shalwar-kameezes on rubble pitches to batting their way around the globe and up the international league tables.
Three boys wander around a large town in Afghanistan, looking for empty bottles and cans to recycle to get them some money for food. During their walk they talk about what's on their minds. Every now and then, the director asks his protagonists for some explanations, such as why they share a loaf of bread they just got with a boy they don't know. One of them answers very matter-of-factly: "As God gives to us, we must give to his people."
Werner Herzog follows mountaineers Hans Kammerlander and Reinhold Messner during their expedition into climbing the Gasherbrum mountains, which has some of the most difficult peaks to be conquered, and they'll do it without the use of oxygen tanks. Herzog also takes some time to hear about their past experiences with other mountains, their personal tragedies and the reasons why they are so involved with such activity.
A portrait of an unforgettable transgender schoolteacher in Herat, Afghanistan, who shines even with the prospect of the Taliban’s return.
'Afghanistan 1979: the war that changed the world', is a French documentary about the Sovjet invasion in Afghanistan in 1979. It was one of the most crucial events of the 20th century, and changed the world forever. This documentary gives a good insight in the Afghan-Russian war ; the alliance between the Russian and Afghan communist governments ; Islamic resistance ; the support of America for the resistance and its consequences on the war.
By immersing themselves in a Taliban village, and after gaining very rare access to major institutions, the directors shed a disturbing light on today's Taliban society, and on the workings of this ultra-conservative parallel state. whose leaders have just symbolically moved into the presidential palace, to assert a stranglehold that foreshadows the Afghanistan of tomorrow.