8am: Abbas Alizada says that he is going to appear in a Hollywood film this year. Alizada, known internationally as the “Afghan Bruce Lee,” is a popular martial artist, actor, impersonator and celebrity in Afghanistan. In a story on Monday, January 9, Toronto Star reflected on the ups and downs in the life of Abbas
The Afghan actor Ali Danish Bakhtyari, who played the role of an orphan in the 2007 film “The Kite Runner,” has fled the Taliban rule in his home country twice: first in the late 1990s, and then in 2021, when the United States withdrew its forces from Afghanistan. Keith Kocinski has the story from
Daily Sabah: People from rural areas in Afghanistan, where electricity and internet problems have worsened, have started to travel to city centers to buy and download Turkish hit series “Kuruluş Osman” (“The Ottoman”) and “Diriliş Ertuğrul” (“Resurrection Ertuğrul”). Gül Ahmed Açıkzey, who owns a telephone shop in Kandahar province in the south of the country,
popMATTERS: Matthew Heineman’s remarkable Retrograde—a National Geographic film showing at some festivals now and hitting theaters and streaming later this year—is one of the most unsettlingly intimate examples of this kind of filmmaking. Ostensibly, it’s a document of the last nine months of the Western-backed Afghanistan government in 2021. The film’s scope ranges from furious
Tolo News: Director of Afghan Film, Javid Afghan, said the organization does not have the budget to make feature films, and therefore the priority has gone to making documentaries and short films. “We have done a lot of work using limited means and a small budget, and we have some projects underway, we have screened
Al Jazeera: Nabi Roshan was a renowned comedian, dubbed by many as the Jon Stewart of Afghanistan, with his show aired on the country’s largest TV network – watched by millions each week. But last August he was forced to flee the country after the Taliban armed group took over the country 20 years after
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty March 29, 2022 U.S. cellist Yo-Yo Ma joined refugees from the Afghanistan National Institute of Music for a performance in Lisbon, Portugal, where the Afghan musicians have sought asylum. Ma joined young Afghan and Portuguese musicians for the performance of a Mozart piece on March 29 on a small stage at
8am: The Taliban have imposed certain restrictions and censorships on media and freedom of speech since August 2021. In addition to the Taliban’s interferences in media’s scope of work, the factors such as security threats, and lack of funds have forced many media channels to shut down. It is recently reported that more than 50%
Tolo News: “The disappearances and detentions of Taliban critics, journalists & activists continue. Sayed Baqir Mohsini & Nadima are taken by the Taliban & there is no information about their whereabouts. This a group of dictators & repressors who must never be recognized & supported,” said Samira Hamidi, a member of Amnesty International. Click
The Guardian (UK): Nancy Yu, AKA Asia One is drawing on the hip-hop movement’s activist roots to help a group of artists and their families escape the Taliban. Click here to read more (external link).