Taxi to the Dark Side

Camp Victory, Afghanistan is the true story of the American Exit Strategy. Using 300 hours of footage shot over the course of three years, the film follows a battle-tested Afghan General and the steady stream of U.S. National Guard soldiers deployed to train the men of his newly formed battalion. It is the first film to examine the reality of building a functioning Afghan military-- but it is also a story about friendship and the unlikely bonds that form across cultural, political and social barriers.

Karim Asir, the Afghan Charlie Chaplin, in the midst of bombs and disasters, gives performances using laughter as his only weapon. When the Taliban takeover, Karim is threatened with death. After a series of adversities, he manages to arrive in Greece. We follow his life adventure, and through his story, we explore the issue of laughter – in Afghanistan and beyond.

Three boys wander around a large town in Afghanistan, looking for empty bottles and cans to recycle to get them some money for food. During their walk they talk about what's on their minds. Every now and then, the director asks his protagonists for some explanations, such as why they share a loaf of bread they just got with a boy they don't know. One of them answers very matter-of-factly: "As God gives to us, we must give to his people."

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In the high peaks of Afghanistan, young athletes from rival villages build makeshift wooden skis and convene for a mountain race that unites the community in a moment of peace and triumph just before their country’s collapse. Champions of the Golden Valley merges the triumphant spirit of a classic underdog sports story with the heartfelt portrait of a community finding hope amid disrupted dreams. Revealing a stunning unseen side of Afghanistan, it is an uplifting exploration of what it means to be a champion – in all its forms.

In July 2021, after the last foreign soldiers had left Afghanistan, the film team traveled to Kabul to portrait female singers. No one could have guessed at the time that this would be the last opportunity to do so. A year later, most of them have left...

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Join taxi-driver, Conway, as he trawls the streets of Cape Town’s CBD – whether crossing the boundaries of high-life or low-life, it’s all in a night’s work. The hours are long, but Conway is good company, regaling us with stories of his colourful past and his beloved daughter, a constant commentary of Long Street’s underworld and, when words run out, singing along to Alanis Morisette.

This documentary produced in 1973 is a remarkable document on traditional Islamic culture in Afghanistan before the country met with the disasters of ideological struggles and civil war. To a Muslim sensibility, its importance goes much further. It is an objective and respectful testimony to the profound, essential aspects of the spiritual culture of Islam, captured by a Western filmmaker.

A documentary that reveals the underbelly of the global aid and investment industry. It's a complex web of interests that span the earth from powerful nations and multinational corporations to tribal and village leaders. This documentary offers unique insights into a multi-billion dollar world by investigating how aid dollars are spent.

This film - without commentary and simply accompanied by local music - relates the 1969 ascent of the north face of Kohe Shakhawr, a Himalayan peak located on the border with Afghanistan, by mountaineers Benoît Mathieu, Jacques Soubis, René Thomas, Jean-Paul Paris, Isabelle Agresti, Henri Agresti, Roger Dietz, Jean-Pierre Frésafond, Paul Gendre, Claude Jager and Félix Magnin. As is often the case in Henri Agresti's films, there is an encounter with other peoples, other cultures, documented at length in the introduction. Then, after the interminable approach, the ascent begins: distribution of camps, successive assaults on the mountain, walking on steep scree and snowy slopes, climbing on icy walls... The arrival at the summit, without the aid of oxygen devices, seems to take place in slow motion: exhaustion mixes with the joy of the victorious mountaineers who will celebrate their success on their return to base camp on August 24, 1969.

Afghanistan, one of the most dangerous places on earth, is home to a population of endangered and elusive snow leopards.

When NATO troops withdrew from Afghanistan, the Afghan National Army (ANA) took over control of Helmand Province, an extremely dangerous region where attacks by Taliban fighters are the order of the day. Security, much less peace, would seem to be unattainable; it is even difficult to find a common language in a country where everyone mistrusts each other. The directors of this film accompanied an ANA company during a year of frontline duty in Helmand. The soldiers are paid irregularly, there are not enough supplies and their equipment is substandard. They cannot fight a war with the equipment left behind by the ISAF.

This landmark documentary, filmed a year before 9/11, detailed the trip by a trio of Americans to interview al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners held by the Northern Alliance deep in the Afghan mountains, revealing the terrorists’ intentions to strike against the US.

Music elates, touches the soul and bypasses reason. Music is magic. But precisely this magic can turn it into an insidious weapon for music and violence belong together. The brutal power of African war dances, the ferocity of Maori Hakas, the earth-shattering roar of US sound guns blasting Metallica at Taliban hideouts the principle is always the same: Aggressive sounds demoralise the enemy and whip the allies into a frenzy. In Songs of War, director Tristan Chytroschek explores the extraordinary harmony between music and violence. Sesame Street composer, Christopher Cerf, always wanted his music to be fun and entertaining. But then he learned that his songs had been used to torture prisoners in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. He is stunned by this abuse of his work and wants to find out how this could happen.

Filmmaker Robert Greenwald (Outfoxed) carefully examines the war in Afghanistan, raising challenging questions about the destabilization of Pakistan, U.S. troop escalation, ballooning military costs, civilian casualties and much more. Through fascinating interviews with Afghans, veterans, reporters, ex-CIA agents and foreign-policy experts, Greenwald's incisive documentary urges an immediate de-escalation of the conflict.

In 1979, after the Soviet Union attacked Afghanistan, millions of Afghans were forced to leave their homeland to save their lives, and in the meantime, a huge wave of them immigrated to Iran.

In a greenhouse in England, a military veteran talks about his experiences as a soldier in Afghanistan. Clement Boland served with the British Army in Helmand Province for more than ten years and has suffered from PTSD since his return. His therapy now consists of gardening. In five insightful scenes, he talks about how the landscapes of East Sussex and Afghanistan keep intertwining because of his repeated reliving of memories of the war. One image he can’t get out of his mind is of an Afghan man who “looked like Jesus.” Clement wasn’t the one who fired the shot, but he feels guilt nonetheless.

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La vie devant elle is the diary of the exile of Elaha, a 14 year old Afghan girl, who films herself with a small camera to tell her story. Through her story, the film portrays the reality of children growing up on the road, tossed from place to place to flee conflicts in the hope of finding a normal life.