Afghanistan to restore precious films that survived Taliban rule

Thousands of hours of footage hidden from the Taliban in Afghanistan will be digitised, introducing young Afghans to their country's rich past.

This photograph taken on August 16, 2017 shows employees digitising films at the state-run Afghan Film department in Kabul.
AFP

This photograph taken on August 16, 2017 shows employees digitising films at the state-run Afghan Film department in Kabul.

The Taliban charged in to Afghanistan's state-run film company in the mid-1990s intent on destroying all the movies and banned popular entertainment, including cinema and music, during their brutal 1996-2001 rule.

The militants burned several movie reels before leaving but they failed to discover some 7,000 films.

60-year-old Habibullah Ali, who has worked at Afghan Film for 36 years, hid thousands of reels of footage showcasing Afghanistan's rich cultural history.

"We did not expect to leave for our homes that day alive," Ali says, clutching a saved reel.

"If they had found out we had hidden movies they would have killed us."

Two decades later those reels are being made available to watch again through digitisation.

TRT World's Kerry Alexandra reports.

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The years-long project will bring back to life hugely popular Afghan feature films, centred on love rather than war, and introduce young Afghans to a side of their country they've 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 Ali.

Afghan Film hopes broadcasters will air the old movies and footage, while a private media group has plans to make a web channel.

Despite militants, including the Taliban, running or contesting around 40 percent of Afghanistan's territory, the department plans to organise screenings in remote villages which do not have TVs or the internet.

AFP

An employee taking a film reel to be digitised at the state-run Afghan Film department in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 16, 2017.

"All sorts of tricks"

The digitisation of the footage, of which there are tens of thousands of hours, is being overseen by Afghan Film General Director Mohammad Ibrahim Arify.

"The reels were hidden in cans marked Indian or Western movies and in barrels buried in the ground," Arify says.

"Many were stored in rooms blocked by a brick wall and in fake ceilings. They used all sorts of tricks," he adds.

Arify says they have 32,000 hours of 16-mm film and 8,000 hours of 35-mm film.

But cataloguing them is still ongoing, as members of the public continue to hand in movies that they themselves hid from the Taliban.

"I can't say whether we will finish with 50,000 or 100,000 hours," he says, surrounded by shelves stacked with round silver tins containing the reels.

"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," says 27-year-old employee M Fayaz Lutfi.

The project began this year and 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," Lutfi says.

"Moving backwards"

The documentary footage dates from the 1920s to the late 1970s – before the Soviet invasion, the brutal civil war, Taliban rule, the 16-year US-led fight against insurgents and the recent Daesh attacks targeting Shias.

At a recent screening at the US embassy in Kabul's heavily-fortified green zone, a selection of images showed a thriving Afghanistan starkly different to the war-weary nation of today.

AFP

An employee preparing the screening of a film in a projection room at the state-run Afghan Film department in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 16, 2017.

A different Afghanistan

Laughing families were seen having picnics in parks while there was no sign of the blast-proof concrete walls that now blot Kabul's landscape.

"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," said 34-year-old Arif Ahmadi. 

"In other countries people are moving forward but if you look at our past we are moving backwards," he added.

For older Afghans, the films would be a reminder of happier times and for the young generation, a glimpse of Afghanistan's past that may help raise hope for its future.

"We will take the risk to go to every corner of the country. We want our children to learn how Afghans used to live," says Arify.

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