For nearly five years, filmmaker Ariel Nasr had unprecedented access to Afghanistan’s national film archive while creating The Forbidden Reel. He combined interviews with key figures from the Afghan film industry with freshly restored images from Afghan Film’s extraordinary archive.
It can be called a true miracle that Nasr could use this archival footage as the Taliban regime (from 1996 to 2001) destroyed many artworks in this period, including films. When Afghan Film was tipped off that the Taliban would come after the archive the next day, the archivists risked their lives to safeguard the most important prints of their national film history.
Through the ‘saved’ films from the Afghan film archive, Nasr gives us a fascinating insight into an Afghanistan most of us have never seen before.
Screening online only to accompany the in-person session ‘Fragmented Memory: Unearthing Film History in Kabul, Afghanistan’ at BFI Southbank. With thanks to filmmaker Ariel Nasr and the National Film Board of Canada.