A-List Quality Films of Afghanistan
Quality films made by Afghan filmmakers inside or outside of Afghanistan. The purpose of this list is to showcase films that meet or exceed some international cinematic standards of filmmaking - and have been somehow recognized as notable films by Afghans and the international community alike.
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- DirectorSiddiq BarmakStarsMarina GolbahariZubaida SaharKhwaja NaderAfter the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the restriction of women in public life, a pre-teen girl is forced to masquerade as a boy in order to find work to support her mother and grandmother.
- DirectorHavana MarkingStarsRafi NaabzadaLima SaharHameed SakhizadaA documentary about the simultaneously unifying and divisive effects of Afghanistan's version of the TV talent show format on its society. It focuses on "Afghan Star" which airs on the Tolo TV channel in Afghanistan.
- DirectorAnwar Hajher16 Days in Afghanistan is a documentary that documents the state of Afghan people after the fall of the Taliban.
- DirectorSam FrenchStarsFawad MohammadiJawanmard PaizWali TalashSet against the dramatic landscape of contemporary Afghanistan and the National sport of Buzkashi - a brutal game of horse polo played with a dead goat - Buzkashi Boys tells the coming of age story of two best friends, a charismatic street urchin and a defiant blacksmith's son, who struggle to realize their dreams as they make their way to manhood in one of the most war-torn countries on Earth. Shot on location in Kabul city by an alliance of Afghan and international film makers, Buzkashi Boys is a look at the life that continues beyond the headlines of war in Afghanistan.
- DirectorAtiq RahimiStarsGolshifteh FarahaniHamid DjavadanHassina BurganIn a war ridden country a woman watches over the husband reduced to a vegetable state by a bullet in the neck, abandoned by Jihad companions and brothers. One day, the woman decides to say things to him she could never have done before.
- DirectorSonia Nassery ColeStarsHaji Gul AserSonia Nassery ColeLeo SolomonThe Mansouri family opens up a new restaurant after the fall of the Taliban in Kabul, Afghanistan only to be subsequently targeted by factional Taliban elements.
- DirectorBarmak AkramStarsWajma BaharMustafa AbdulsatarHaji Gul AserIt's snowing in Kabul, and gregarious waiter Mustafa charms a pretty student named Wajma. The pair begins a clandestine relationship - they're playful and passionate but ever mindful of the societal rules they are breaking. After Wajma discovers she is pregnant, her certainty that Mustafa will marry her falters, and word of their dalliance gets out. Her father must decide between his culturally held right to uphold family honor and his devotion to his daughter.
- DirectorBarmak AkramStarsHaji Gul AserValéry SchatzAmélie GlennA woman in a light-blue chadri abandons her infant in the backseat of a cab in the bustling streets of post-war Kabul.
- DirectorAtiq RahimiStarsAbdul GhaniJawan Mard HomayounSher AgahElderly Dastaguir and his newly deaf 5-year-old grandson Yassin hitchhike and walk, but mostly walk, as they make their way to the coal mine where Dastaguir's son Murad works. Dastaguir must tell Murad that the rest of their family were all killed in a recent bomb attack.
- DirectorSiddiq BarmakStarsPeter BussianJoe SubaFawad SamaniTwo American soldiers wounded in the Afghanistan desert stumble across a Russian tank which has a group of Afghanis living inside.
- DirectorAshok NandaJawed WasselStarsBaktash ZaherMariam WeissYunis AziziA young Afghan-American on a journey of "self-discovery".
- DirectorAriana Delawari"We Came Home" is the story of Afghanistan through Afghan-American musician Ariana Delawari. Born in L.A. the year the Soviets invade Afghanistan, her home is filled with refugees, Afghan music, and her father's dedication to Afghanistan, a country nobody else seemed to care about. After 9/11, her parents move to Kabul to help reconstruct. Ariana spends 10 years between L.A. and Afghanistan, documenting her father's homeland in photographs, film, and music. During the Taliban resurgence, Ariana records an album with master musicians in Kabul, revealing the challenges of building anything in this country. Ariana experiences firsthand the threat of war and corruption when her father is arrested. Through this, she unexpectedly realizes why her father could never abandon his people. She now understands that Afghanistan cannot be forgotten.
- DirectorHorace ShansabStarsDad'ullah AhmadzaiMalik AkhlaqiGholam Farouq BarakiA rural Afghan family struggles to survive during the last, brutal year of the Taliban and the beginning of a new war that still rages. With war and conflict threatening their existence, the family copes by finding meaning in life's tragedies.
- DirectorMohammad Hossein LatifiStarsMarina GolbahariSaba SaharThe dramatic tale of a young girl who tries to save her chronically ill Mother.
- DirectorRazi MohebiStarsMahdi EbadiChoori Foroosh (The Bracelet Seller) takes place in Kabul. It is about a beautiful young street-vendor, Rana, whose picture is taken by a journalist. The photograph later appears in a Kabul magazine. This is the beginning of the end for Rana who is then ostracised by her colleagues, repudiated by her husband, sent back to her village and generally rejected by the whole community. The journalist tries to find the girl again but in vain.
- DirectorRoya SadatStarsGul AfroozKhalil AhmadAref MohammadyGul Afrooz is engaged to her lover Firooz, despite this she is forced to marry an old warlord, a Khan.The Khan sends her to Iran as a drug courier for an opium ring. The ring is busted and she has to avoid the police and the revenge of the Khan,
- DirectorLatif AhmadiStarsSalam SangiSabur ToofanIbrahim Toghyan
- DirectorRoya SadatStarsLeena AlamAziz DeldarMamnoun MaqsoudiSoraya, a low-level government official, is imprisoned when she defends a woman from village lords. Behind bars, she writes the Afghan President for help.
- DirectorJamshid MahmoudiStarsNoor Agha AhmadiMahdi EbadiHasiba EbrahimiA romance blooms between a young Iranian man working in a factory in Tehran and the daughter of an Afghan worker.
- DirectorShahrbanoo SadatStarsQodratAminaSaharBased upon unpublished diaries, the film assumes the role of an anthropologist observing remote shepherd communities in Afghanistan where wolves and sheep have equal importance.
- DirectorAboozar AminiStarsMahdi EbadiA city is an orchestration of its inhabitants. The film portraits the city Kabul through daily details of two kids and a bus driver, set against the background of a city destroyed by politic and religious powers.