Afghanistan Night Stories

60 min/color/DCP/Spoken languages: Afghan/Subtitles in English

A story of war, love, life, and death. This is an unprecedented look at elite fighters, and the hopes and dreams they have rarely spoken of before.

Synopsis:

A group of four Afghan commandos are fighting the Taliban for a better Afghanistan. They have nights of high tension in their battle against an invisible enemy. These soldiers, who have linked their fates, are ready for death at any time. Unexpected accounts of longing and of love provide an unprecedented journey into the private hearts of members of the Afghan Army.

From Director Roya Sadat

My research for Afghanistan Night Stories began with a warning from friends and colleagues. When I first spoke to them about shooting a documentary about Afghan commandos fighting the Taliban, they said, “You can't make this film. You can't because you are a girl. They won't allow you.”

But I started to film, against those odds and trying to control my fear. I was motivated by the question of what it takes to fight the Taliban and who are the people doing this job. Before this, I had exclusively worked on films about women in Afghan society as hidden heroes. Now I am trying to understand who are the people sacrificing their lives for us to live in peace?

It was challenging to be accepted by a group of male commandos who did not know anything about film and seemed to reject me at first. Only after months of intense talks and observations, did I finally persuade these men to allow a woman to follow them. As they opened up, an authentic confidence grew between me and them. In time, they began to tell me their hopes and dreams and their love stories. One of the soldiers died in a firefight with insurgents as we were shooting the film. After this, the relationship with the group got more intense and more emotional. Another force that drove me was a desire to show to the world and my own people a film that deals with not only foreign forces coming to Afghanistan. After 2014, it was largely Afghan forces that waged the war against the Taliban. And no one had told the stories beyond those of the battleground – the stories of who the soldiers were as people. Overcoming my own prejudices and wrong perceptions, I became friends with these men and was able to make this first film by an Afghan woman with a personal view on the war.

Director'sstatement