Film-maker wins global awards for Afghan war documentaries
Ahmad seeks to bring global attention to suffering in Afghanistan
Pakistani filmmaker Shehzad Hameed Ahmad’s documentary series, exploring human suffering in the Afghanistan war, has won two silver awards at Germany’s World Media Festivals 2020. The films, entitled Caught in the Crossfire and The Battle for Kabul, won the awards in the Global Issues and Political categories.
The awards were announced online as the gala ceremony was cancelled due to Covid-19. Ahmad recently won two prizes at the New York Festival 2020.
For Ahmad, the time spent in Afghanistan chronicling the ongoing war was “heartbreaking”. He and his crew spent 15 days in the country, travelling to Bagram airbase, Ghazni and surrounding areas of Kabul to film the two-hour-long documentary.
Describing the filming experience in the war-ravaged country, in an interview with Gulf News, Ahmad said: “From boarding the plane to Kabul, where I was joined by young, tattooed American troops sitting beside me, discussing money issues at home, to the Humvees and Chinooks that greeted me upon landing at the tarmac, it all felt like right out of a Hollywood movie.”
Soon, he realised the proximity and severity of threats. “On the first day of filming, I heard of a loud bang near our hotel. A Daesh suicide bomber had ripped through a gym in the Shiite neighbourhood of Dasht-e-Barchi.” As security forces and local Afghan media rushed to the bombsite, his local contact advised to stay at the hotel. But Ahmad decided to continue filming and went to the Emergency Hospital where dead bodies were brought.
It felt like “looking war in the eye.” Soon after, a second bomb went off at the same location, killing aid workers, journalists and security forces.
Sharing one of the most painful memories, Ahmad said, “I won’t ever forget Samim Faramarz, a local Afghan journalist who was blown away while doing a live TV coverage” he said.
“I dedicate this award to Samim Faramarz and to all those journalists working in hostile areas.”
The war that has affected three generations is often viewed through a statistical lens such as “6 trillion dollars spent in wars and 100,000 deaths in 10 years. My films humanise these numbers to show the real people lost, dreams shattered, family members taken away,” Ahmad said. Through his films, Ahmad seeks to bring the world’s attention to the suffering in Afghanistan.