The South Asia Center is pleased to announce its first event of the semester, "Afghanistan Through Film," a one day film festival on Friday, January 20th from 12-4 pm in 060 Eggers (Global Collaboratory). This event showcases three recent films that address issues of conflict and reconciliation in post-2001 Afghanistan. 

The first film, "Afghan Stories" (2002), highlights the plight of a variety of Afghans immediately after September 11, 2001. The film makers meet with members of the erstwhile royal family, refugees, aid workers, and warlords. This intimate film documents the trauma, strength and resiliency of a people whose lives had been torn apart by war.

"The Beauty Academy of Kabul" (2006) is a slightly more optimistic portrait of post-Taliban Afghanistan. It captures the wonderfully odd circumstances that bring Afghan and American women together in pursuit of physical beauty and much more. A quirky gaggle of Western hairstylists, including Afghan-American women, armed with blow driers and designer scissors, improbably opens a school to teach eager Afghan women the high art of fixing hair. Both humorous and slyly subversive, the film offers poignant moments of culture clash between the Americans and Afghans and touching moments of feminine solidarity. Eschewing the trivial, this film innovatively renders the odd story of international goodwill through hair care in exquisitely humane terms.
 

The final film, "Rethink Afghanistan" (2009) is a more politically minded documentary,  focusing on the key issues surrounding the war in Afghanistan.

For the "Afghanistan Through Film" poster, please click here.