The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) is a women's organization based in Kabul, Afghanistan, that promotes women's rights and secular democracy. It was founded in 1977 by Meena Keshwar Kamal, an Afghan student activist who was assassinated in February 1987 for her political activities. The group, which supports non-violent strategies, had its initial office in Kabul, Afghanistan, but then moved to Pakistan in the early 1980s.
Mohsen Makhmalbaf is an Iranian film director, writer, film editor, and producer. He has made more than 20 feature films, won some 50 awards and been a juror in more than 15 major film festivals. His award-winning films include Kandahar; his latest documentary is The Gardener and latest feature The President.
Khaled Hosseini is an Afghan-American novelist, UNHCR goodwill ambassador, and former physician. His debut novel The Kite Runner (2003) was a critical and commercial success; the book and his subsequent novels have all been at least partially set in Afghanistan and have featured an Afghan as the protagonist.
Osama is a 2003 drama film made in Afghanistan by Siddiq Barmak. The film follows a preteen girl living in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime who disguises herself as a boy, Osama, to support her family. It was the first film to be shot entirely in Afghanistan since 1996, when the Taliban regime banned the creation of all films. The film is an international co-production between companies in Afghanistan, the Netherlands, Japan, Ireland, and Iran.
At Five in the Afternoon is a 2003 film by Iranian writer-director Samira Makhmalbaf. It tells the story of an ambitious young woman trying to gain an education in Afghanistan after the defeat of the Taliban. The title comes from a Federico García Lorca poem and is a tale of flourishing against the odds.
Kandahar is a 2001 Iranian film directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, set in Afghanistan during the rule of the Taliban. Its original Afghan title is Safar-e Ghandehar, which means "Journey to Kandahar", and it is alternatively known as The Sun Behind the Moon. The film is based on a partly true, partly fictionalized story of Nafas, a successful Afghan-Canadian woman played by Nelofer Pazira.
Khosrow and Shirin is the title of a famous tragic romance by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi (1141–1209), who also wrote Layla and Majnun. It tells a highly elaborated fictional version of the story of the love of the Sasanian king Khosrow II for the Armenian princess Shirin, who becomes queen of Persia. The essential narrative is a love story of Persian origin which was already well known from the great epico-historical poem the Shahnameh and other Persian writers and popular tales, and other works have the same title.
Afghan refugees are citizens of Afghanistan who were compelled to abandon their country as a result of major wars, persecution, torture or genocide. The 1978 Saur Revolution followed by the 1979 Soviet invasion marked the first wave of internal displacement and international migration from Afghanistan to neighboring Iran and Pakistan; smaller numbers also went to India or to the former Soviet Union. Between 1979 and 1992, more than 20% of Afghanistan's population fled the country as refugees. When the Soviet forces left Afghanistan in 1989, many began returning to their homeland. They again migrated to neighboring countries during and after the Afghan Civil War (1992–1996) but between 2002 and 2022 most have returned to Afghanistan.
Afghan Americans are Americans of Afghan descent or Americans who originated from Afghanistan. They form the largest Afghan community in North America with the second being Afghan Canadians. The Afghan Americans may originate from any of the ethnic groups of Afghanistan. They have long been considered by the Board of Immigration Appeals and the United States Census Bureau as White American, but a significant number may also identify themselves as Asian Americans.
The Other Side of the Sky: A Memoir is a memoir by Farah Ahmedi with Tamim Ansary. The book profiles the life of Farah Ahmedi from the time she was born Hola until she was seventeen years old.
Malek Shafi’i is a film director, producer, festival organiser, and human rights activist from Afghanistan.
Jemima Marcelle Goldsmith is a British screenwriter, television, film and documentary producer and the founder of Instinct Productions, a television production company. She was formerly a journalist and associate editor of The New Statesman, a British political and cultural magazine, and served as the European editor-at-large for the American magazine Vanity Fair.
Afghans in Iran are citizens of Afghanistan who are temporarily residing in Iran as refugees or asylum seekers. The first wave of Afghans were admitted to Iran after the start of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are 780,000 registered Afghan refugees residing in Iran as of October 2020, most of whom were born and raised in Iran during the last four decades. There are also about 586,000 Afghan tourists, travelers, merchants, exchanged students, migrant workers, and others.
The Afghan Alphabet is a 2002 documentary by Mohsen Makhmalbaf showing the life of children in the Afghan villages bordering Iran, and how their life and culture were affected by the Taliban regime.
Meena Shorey was a Pakistani film actress who worked first in Indian cinema and later Pakistani cinema. She appeared in Hindi/Urdu and Punjabi films. Credited in films by her mononym, Meena, her real name was Khurshid Jehan. She started her acting career playing a character role, as Ambhi, Raja of Taxila's sister in Sohrab Modi's Sikandar (1941). Married to her third husband, Roop K. Shorey, by the mid-1940s, she found fame when she acted in her husband's film Ek Thi Larki (1949), opposite actor Motilal. The story was written by I. S. Johar, who also starred in the film. The "foot-tapping" music composed by Vinod became a "huge hit", with Meena becoming an "icon" for the "new liberated" young women. Meena was acclaimed as the "Lara Lappa Girl", from the song of same title in the film. She was one of the first women to be recognised in Indian cinema as a "comedienne of calibre". She was also popularly referred as The Droll Queen of Partition as she worked in both in India and Pakistan.
Janaan is a 2016 Pakistani romantic comedy film directed by Azfar Jafri, written by Osman Khalid Butt and co-produced by Hareem Farooq, Munir Hussain, Imran Raza Kazmi and Reham Khan, under production banners of IRK Films and Munir Hussain Films – UK. The film stars Armeena Khan, Bilal Ashraf and Ali Rehman Khan in lead roles.
Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami is a Sundance Award-winning Iranian documentary filmmaker who was born in Tehran. She has directed one full-length documentary, four short documentaries and one animated documentary.
Bioscopewala is an Indian Hindi-language drama film directed by Deb Medhekar, and produced by Sunil Doshi. The film stars Danny Denzongpa and Geetanjali Thapa in lead roles and had its world premiere at the 30th Tokyo International Film Festival on 28 October 2017. The film is an adaptation of Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore's 1892 short story Kabuliwala and released on 25 May 2018 in India. The official trailer of the film was released on YouTube by Fox Star Studios on 8 May 2018. Bioscopewala has taken forward the timeline of Kabuliwala, the original story written by Rabindranath Tagore, from the 19th century to somewhere in the 1980s during the Taliban regime and changed the profession of Rehmat, the central character, from a dry fruit seller to a man who goes around showing films to children through his bioscope.
Tahmina Rajabova is a Tajik actress, journalist and newscaster. She was honored awards like “The Journalist of the Year” in 2013, “The award for distinguished contribution to the culture and art of Tajikistan” in 2013, and “The award of the TV and Radio Committee of Tajikistan” in 2017 and others.
Khuda Aur Mohabbat is the third season of Pakistani spiritual-romance series Khuda Aur Mohabbat. Produced by Abdullah Kadwani and Asad Qureshi under 7th Sky Entertainment, it features Feroze Khan and Iqra Aziz in lead roles. The season premiered on 12 February 2021. The series received high viewership rating, and mixed reviews from critics who praised the acting performances of the lead cast but criticized the story for being problematic. The series is the most watched Pakistani television series on YouTube with over 2 billion views.
