Afghan filmmaking in the 1960s and 1970s
The history of the Afghan film industry may be traced back to ‘Love and Friendship’, the first black and white film by Afghan director and writer Ustaad Rashid Latif. This film was made in the late 1960s with the co-operation of Indian filmmakers and all the technical work on the film was carried out in Lahore, at that time part of India. Subsequently Faruk Afandi, a film director from Turkey, was the first to train the Afghans in private classes and as apprentices.
Prior to this, imported films from India had been popular, but the surge in nationalism in the 1960s encouraged filmmakers to produce films that identified Afghanistan as an independent nation. When the fledgling Afghan Film was established in 1965 it turned out documentaries and news films about official government meetings and conferences. Such films were shown in the cinemas before the main feature, because at that time there was no television station in Afghanistan.
The first film made in Kabul by Afghan artists was ‘Like Eagles’, starring Zahir Waida and a young girl named Najia. Soon after this the Afghan film company made a three-part film called ‘Ages’, the component parts of which were ‘Smugglers’, ‘Suitors’ and ‘Friday Night’. Two other films that from the same era are ‘Village Tunes’ and ‘Difficult Days’. All these films were produced in black and white. Leading actors of this period included Khan Aga Sarvar, Rafig Seddig, Aziz alla Hadaf, Mashal Honar and Parvin Sanatgar (f).
The first colour films appeared during the late 1960s and included ‘Run Away‘ (Farar), ‘Love Epic’ (Hema Se Ishg), ‘Saboor Soldier’, ‘Ash’ (Khakestar), ‘Last Wishes’ (Akharin Arezo) and ‘Migrating Birds’ (Paranda Mohajer). The first official Film Department was set up during this period. Although technologically challenged, its work proved a success with the people as its aspiration was to capture the national identity on film and its productions were, in Sediqullah Barmak’s words, ‘a mirror in which the people could see their own face’.
By the 1970s the film industry was thriving and in Kabul itself no fewer than 18 cinemas were doing good business, but with the Soviet era came decline. Some filmmakers subsequently left Afghanistan because of restrictions on their creativity. ‘They [the Soviets] were not against the Afghan people’, says one filmmaker, ‘but they were against our heritage and way of life and I couldn’t make films that conflicted with my beliefs’. Others made use of the training offered, which involved both Soviet teachers working in Afghanistan and scholarships abroad. However, since Afghanistan had no film academy, future filmmakers had to apprentice on the job.
