Hidden from the Taliban, Afghanistan’s lost movies go digital
Habibullah Ali risked everything – including his life – to save the archives of Afghanistan’s state-run film company from the ravages of the Taliban in the mid-1990s.
Mr Ali hid thousands of reels documenting Afghanistan’s rich cultural history, knowing that if the Taliban found out he faced certain death.
“We did not expect to leave for our homes that day alive,” he says, clutching a reel. “If they had found out we had hidden movies they would have killed us.”
The Taliban, who banned cinema and music during their brutal rule from 1996 to 2001, burnt reels before leaving.
They failed to find about 7,000 precious films that Mr Ali and his colleagues hid in the Kabul premises of Afghan Film.
Two decades later those reels, which include movies and documentaries of Afghanistan before it was ravaged by violence, are being made available again through digitisation.
The years-long project will bring back to life popular Afghan feature films, centred on love rather than war, and introduce young Afghans to a side of their country they have never known – peace.
“We were very scared but, by God’s grace, we were able to save the movies and now we have this culture alive,” says Mr Ali, 60, who has worked at Afghan Film for 36 years.
The digitisation of the tens of thousands of hours is being overseen by Afghan Film general director Mohammad Arify.
“The reels were hidden in cans marked Indian or western movies and in barrels buried in the ground,” Mr Arify says. “Many were stored in rooms blocked by a brick wall and in fake ceilings. They used all sorts of tricks.”
He says they have 32,000 hours of 16-millimetre film and 8,000 hours of 35mm film, but the catalogue is growing as members of the public hand in film they hid from the Taliban.
Digitisation is a time-consuming process. First, the reels are cleaned to remove dust and any scratches, then the film is watched using a projector. Its name, date and reel number are catalogued, and it is classified as a movie or documentary.
Finally, the reel is run through a machine that transfers it into digital form, frame by frame.
“If it’s a feature length movie the whole process can take up to four days. If it’s news images then just one day,” employee M Fayaz Lutfi says.
The project began this year, and Mr Arify hopes the entire library can be completed within two years.
“We are very proud of what we are doing, because we are bringing the dead culture of Afghanistan to life by transferring the visual history of this country to digital,” says Mr Lutfi, 27.
Afghanistan’s state-produced movies of the 1970s were hugely popular among Afghans. The Farsi and Pashto-language films focus on romance, culture and friendship.
Documentary footage dates from the 1920s to the late ’70s – before the Soviet invasion, the civil war, the Taliban rule, the 16-year US-led fight against insurgents and the recent ISIL attacks on Shiites.
At a recent screening at the US embassy in Kabul’s heavily-fortified green zone, images showed a thriving Afghanistan starkly different to the war-weary nation of today.
Laughing families have picnics in parks, women wear short skirts while joking, and there is no sign of the blastproof concrete walls that now blot Kabul.
“I was emotional watching those images because I only have bad memories of my country. I was not lucky enough to live during those times,” says Arif Ahmadi, 34. “In other countries people are moving forward, but if you look at our past we are moving backwards.”
Afghan Film hopes broadcasters will air the old movies and footage, while a private media group has plans to start a web channel.
Despite insurgents controlling or fighting for 40 per cent of Afghanistan’s territory, the department plans to organise screenings in remote villages that do not have television or internet.
For older Afghans, the films will be a reminder of happier times, and for the young generation, a glimpse of Afghanistan’s peaceful past that may help raise hope for its future.
“We will take the risk to go to every corner of the country,” Mr Arify says. “We want our children to learn how Afghans used to live.”