The mission to restore once hidden, forbidden Afghan films
The negatives, dusty and brittle after being hidden away for so many years, reveal the stark contradictions of modern Afghan history, from footage of dance parties in 1970s-era Kabul, to shots of the nascent mujahedeen army, training in the mountains above — arguably the first “jihadi” videos.
Now these forgotten films of the Cold War era are being brought back to life, both in a documentary by Montreal filmmaker Ariel Nasr, and through a unique collaboration between Afghan Films and Canada’s National Film Board to digitize the films and preserve them for posterity.
Nasr, an Afghan-Canadian whose previous films include Good Morning Kandahar and the Boxing Girls of Kabul, said he hadn’t imagined Afghanistan had had such a vibrant cinema culture — or that these films even existed.
“You see men training with weapons, singing cheerful songs, young, healthy and idealistic . ... Then you realize this is literally where (Osama) bin Laden got his start,” Nasr said in an interview in Montreal.
But you also see what life was like under communism, “that Kabul was a sanctuary, where women were empowered, and where there was art and music and cinema — while in the countryside there was carnage.”
THE FORBIDDEN REEL
Nasr’s film, The Forbidden Reel, to be released in 2019, tells the story of the state-run Afghan Films organization, and this special period of history, from the perspective of two filmmakers. Latif Ahmadi — who studied engineering before becoming a filmmaker — remained president of Afghan Films after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and continued to make films under Soviet rule. At the same time, Siddiq Barmak fled to the mountains and went on to film the mujahedeen, as well as the horrors of the civil war.
Both men, remarkably, remained best friends, communicating over enemy lines, Nasr explains, their passion for cinema transcending politics.
(Barmak’s later film, Osama, about a girl who disguises herself as a boy to support her family during Taliban rule, won the Golden Globe for best foreign-language film in 2003.)
But The Forbidden Reel also showcases some of the most important films in the Afghan archives, now being digitized in Montreal.
Ahmadi’s film Woman, for example, shows the empowerment of women under Soviet rule, featuring images of female soldiers wielding Kalashnikovs.
The House of History, meanwhile, by Qader Tahiri, shows the civilian casualties of the war and the mujahedeen’s destruction of Kabul.
Tahiri, who now lives in Laval, was very moved as he watched a recent edit of The Forbidden Reel, Nasr said. His film was banned by the Taliban.
None of these films would have survived, however, were it not for those who risked their lives to save them.
As Nasr tells the story, after the Taliban took power in 1996 — and before they destroyed the 6th-century Buddha statues of Bamiyan in 1999 — Afghan Films was “tipped off” that the Taliban would come after the film archives the next day.
Overnight, archivists built a fake wall to hide the reels, removing lights from the adjacent hallway so no one would suspect there was another room. When the Taliban police arrived, staff gave them only foreign films and unimportant prints — not negatives — despite the threat that they would be killed if a single film was missing.
In a special twist, Nasr recently discovered that the tip had come from none other than the head of the Taliban’s TV and film authority.
“It’s always more complicated than you think,” Nasr said. “Ideological divisions don’t tell the whole story.”
The reels remained hidden until the overthrow of the Taliban regime in 2001. Some 17 years later, they have made it to Montreal.
I am a filmmaker and this is where I can help . ... Every film that is digitized ... is one more film for posterity.
THE NFB STEPS IN
Nasr said the project started when he got to know Ahmadi in Afghanistan.
“We became friends, he collaborated with me on (Oscar-nominated) Buzkashi Boys — and through the process I realized they needed help preserving films that had come very close to annihilation.”
The NFB, with whom Nasr works, wanted a deeper relationship with its Afghan counterpart, and invited the then-president to come to Montreal to see how the NFB digitizes its own films using state-of-the-art equipment.
The president brought that expertise back to Afghanistan, Nasr said, but he also brought 18 films — the most important ones — to Montreal in October 2017.
Unfortunately, digitizing films — in this case, restoring the film stock to its original quality and creating a digital master for use in any format — is an expensive endeavour.
Nasr and his producers devoted part of their film budget to digitizing some of the films, he said, but fell far short of the estimated $250,000 needed to digitize all 18.
A crowdfunding initiative through Indiegogo, which ended Dec. 17, was widely shared but received only about $3,000 in donations. So far, only six of the 18 films have been digitized.
It’s not everyone’s top priority, Nasr said. The U.S. has invested more than $1 trillion in Afghanistan since 2001, but Kabul still doesn’t have a public sewer system.
“But I am a filmmaker and this is where I can help . ... Every film that is digitized to high quality is one more film for posterity. And for Afghans like me who are so far away, it is a tangible piece of heritage that in many ways is more meaningful to me than a piece of statuary.”