Afghan cinema has long struggled under political upheaval, but documentary filmmakers have found ways to capture ordinary lives with quiet power. Three Songs for Benazir, shot inside a Kabul displacement camp, is a striking example of that tradition. See what Macca made of it and more below.
Country Afghanistan
I went into Super Afghan Gym, Shahrbanoo Sadat's short film, wanting very much to like it. Sadat is a real talent, the woman behind Wolf and Sheep and The Orphanage, and this comes out of Cate Blanchett's Displacement Film Fund, a genuinely worthwhile scheme giving displaced
Rating: 3.5★
Werner Herzog has spent five decades building one of the most singular bodies of work in world cinema, and the through-line connecting nearly all of it is a preoccupation with men who burn themselves up chasing something the rest of us would have the good sense to leave alone.
Rating: 3.5★
We are absolutely saturated with cinema set in Afghanistan. From the Soviet invasion to the endless, grinding War on Terror, the country has frequently served as a backdrop for foreign filmmakers looking to capture geopolitical conflict. There is something almost reflexive about it now, the way Western productions reach for
Genre Documentary
★★★ — Three Songs for Benazir (2021)
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