Afghan documentaries at New York film festival

New York, February 21, 2007 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Three Afghan documentaries, including one on women and another on Kabul, are scheduled to be screened at the 2007 New York Arab and South Asian Film Festival in Big Apple, the organisers said here.

The documentary "Afghan Women: A History of Struggle" by director and producer Kathleen Foster would be presented during the 10-day festival in New York commencing February 23.

Organisers of the mega event said they had collected special feature on Afghanistan, including discussions on the issues of Afghanistan after the screening of those documentaries and films.

The 65-minute film in Persian, Pashto and English subtitles documents the development of the Afghan Women's Rights Bill that was drafted, signed and presented to President Hamid Karzai by women leaders across the country.

To hit the global stage with the film festival, the documentary was created by Afghan women, who participated in the third annual conference of "Women for Afghan Women" in 2003 in Kandahar.

The second documentary on Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, explores the soul of a city devastated by nearly three decades of war. Jointly directed by David Edwards, Maliha Zulfacar and Gregory Whitmore, the 104-minute film follows city residents in the course of their daily lives and listens to their stories of the past and their hopes for the future.

From neighbourhoods leveled by rockets, traditional mud brick homes next to modern glass towers, gleaming SUVs caught in traffic jams with rebuilt taxis, Kabul Transit is about the spirit, as much as it is about the problems of the city.

Directed by Meena Nanji, the 82-minute documentary "View from Grain of Sand" was shot over the last three years in Pakistan and Afghanistan. A doctor, a teacher and a social worker tells how their lives were violently affected by wars of international making and three different regimes in Afghanistan.

One of the significant features of the 10-day festival is said to be the screening of "War Diaries", which will introduce the American public to unseen daily experience of the people of Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan.