Screening of the winning film in the Main Competition – Kabul, Between Prayers | WATCH DOCS

Few films capture Afghanistan’s hermetic, war-scarred society with such intimacy and insight. The protagonist, Samim, dreams of a martyr’s death in a suicide attack. For now, he maintains order at a makeshift police post set up in a shattered Hummer in the center of Kabul, where he calms angry drivers and polices the “indecent” behavior of women. His showy patrols through the city, waving a weapon and striking a macho pose, give him a fleeting sense of control he lacks in conversations with his family. In this world, everything is performative, but the filmmakers see through the veil. Their lens reveals the harsh truth of contemporary Afghanistan through telling close-ups of weary faces and haunting, secretly taken images of street children and women who figure as second-class citizens in a land ruled by men with guns. 

Konrad Wirkowski