Cinema was introduced to Afghanistan at the beginning of the 20th century. Political troubles slowed the industry over the years; however, numerous Pashto and Dari films have been made both inside and outside Afghanistan throughout the 20th century. The cinema of Afghanistan entered a new phase in 2001, but has failed to recover to its popular pre-war status.
Afghan passports are international travel documents issued by the General Directorate of Passports to citizens of Afghanistan. Every person with a valid Afghan identity card (Tazkira) can apply for and receive an Afghan passport, which is renewable every 5-10 years.
Rude is a 1995 Canadian crime film directed by Clement Virgo. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival, before having its Canadian premiere at the 1995 Toronto International Film Festival as the opening film of the Perspectives Canada program.
The Black Tulip is a 2010 film directed by novice filmmaker Sonia Nassery Cole and starring Haji Gul Aser, Sonia Nassery Cole, Walid Amini, Jack Scalia, and Edoardo Costa. It is set in Afghanistan.
Leena Alam is an Afghan film, television, and theater actress. She has appeared in films such as Kabuli Kid, Black Kite, Loori, A Letter to the President and Hassan. She is widely known to have worked on film and TV that speak of child marriage, gender inequality, women's rights and social conflicts.
Afghan Luke is a 2011 Canadian war drama film directed by Mike Clattenburg. The central character, Luke Benning, is a journalist investigating the possible mutilation of corpses in Afghanistan, a country that appears increasingly incomprehensible and surreal as Luke undergoes a series of bizarre adventures.
Wajma (An Afghan Love Story) is a 2013 Afghan drama film written and directed by Barmak Akram. The film was selected as the Afghan entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.
Hyena Road is a 2015 Canadian war drama film directed, written, produced by and starring Paul Gross. It was shown in the Gala Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival. The film was shown on 24 September 2015, at the Calgary Film Festival, before a general release on 9 October. It won three Canadian Screen Awards.
Kabuli Kid is a 2008 French-Afghan drama film directed by Barmak Akram. It stars Haji Gul Aser, Leena Alam, Valéry Schatz and Amélie Glenn. The film, about a Kabul-based taxi driver who finds an infant left in his back seat, was screened at the 65th Venice International Film Festival at the 23rd International Film Critics' Week and won EIUC Human Rights Film Award. It was produced by Fidélité Films, 4 à 4 Productions, and Les Auteurs Associés.
Matt Johnson is a Canadian actor and filmmaker. He first attracted accolades for his low-budget independent feature films, including The Dirties (2013), which won Best Narrative Feature at the Slamdance Film Festival, and Operation Avalanche (2016), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. Johnson achieved widespread acclaim for his third feature film, BlackBerry (2023), which premiered in competition at the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival.
Roya Sadat is an Afghan film producer and director. She was the first woman director in the history of Afghan cinema in the post-Taliban era, and ventured into making feature films and documentaries on the theme of injustice and restrictions imposed on women. Following the fall of the Taliban regime in the country, she made her debut feature film Three Dots. For this film she received six of nine awards which included as best director and best film. In 2003,A Letter to the President her most famous film that received many international awards, she and her sister Alka Sadat established the Roya Film House and under this banner produced more than 30 documentaries and feature films and TV series. She is now involved to direct the opera of A Thousand Splendid Suns for the Seattle Opera and she is during pre production of her 2nd feature film Forgotten History.
Werewolf is a 2016 Canadian drama film directed by Ashley McKenzie and starring Andrew Gillis and Bhreagh MacNeil. It marks McKenzie's feature film directorial debut. The film premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, and subsequently received numerous accolades, including several Canadian Screen Award nominations, and the $100,000 Toronto Film Critics Association prize for best Canadian film of the year in 2017.
The 42nd annual Toronto International Film Festival was held from 7 to 17 September 2017. There were fourteen programmes, with the Vanguard and City to City programmes both being retired from previous years, with the total number of films down by 20% from the 2016 edition. Borg/McEnroe directed by Janus Metz Pedersen opened the festival.
Our People Will Be Healed is a 2017 Canadian documentary film by Alanis Obomsawin. The film premiered at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. The film explores the Helen Betty Osborne Ininiw Education Resource Centre, an N-12 Frontier School Division school in Norway House, Manitoba where Cree students are taught about their own history and culture alongside the regular Manitoba school curriculum.
Jirga is a 2018 Australian drama film written and directed by Benjamin Gilmour and produced by John Maynard. It stars Sam Smith as a former Australian soldier returning to Afghanistan to seek forgiveness from the family of a man he killed while serving in the war. The film was shot under extreme circumstances, in dangerous locations and with assistance from the local people of Afghanistan. Deemed too politically divisive to be produced in Pakistan the film moved production at the last minute to Afghanistan and shot in one of the most dangerous regions in the world, Kandahar Province.
Jasmin Mozaffari is a Canadian film director and screenwriter. She won the Canadian Screen Award for Best Director at the 7th Canadian Screen Awards in 2019 for her debut feature film Firecrackers.
Molly McGlynn is a Canadian film and television director and screenwriter. She is most noted for her feature film debut Mary Goes Round, for which she won the Jay Scott Prize from the Toronto Film Critics Association.
Brother is a 2022 Canadian drama film, written, produced and directed by Clement Virgo. An adaptation of David Chariandy's award-winning novel of the same name, the film centres on the relationship between Francis and Michael, two Black Canadian brothers growing up in the Scarborough district of Toronto, Ontario in the early 1990s.
