Since the establishment of an Afghan Interim Authority (AIA) the rebirth of the Afghan film industry has attracted great international support and it can be said that film is currently the most developed Afghan art form. Significantly, in a country with such a high illiteracy rate, Afghan Film Director Siddiqullah Barmak sees film as an important resource which can help to foster major changes. According to Sanjar Qiam of Internews, the lack of information resulting from the central government’s tenuous control of the provinces is one of the key reasons why the reconstruction process is taking so long. Qiam maintains that disseminating information is what’s needed first. The people have little understanding of the constitution, voting or their rights under the law. They need to know the facts, and in a country with such a low literacy rate film is an ideal medium to achieve this objective.

Accordingly, since 2002 there has been a surge in documentary filmmaking led by the French NGO AÏNA, Afghan Film and numerous independent film companies. Afghan Film collaborates with AÏNA in its annual film caravan, which tours the provinces every summer bringing film to outlying areas of the country. The films shown are mainly educational in nature, covering such subjects as landmine awareness, healthcare and protection of the nation’s heritage. One of the first films to be shown in Mazar e Sharif was Siddiq Obaidi’s ‘The Horsemen’, which included shots of a buzkhashi game. Seeing the national sport on a big screen brought the audience to its feet cheering. Another artist who has gained reknown for his work about Afghanistan is the Iranian filmmaker Makmalbaf. His film ‘Kandahar’ was about an overseas Afghan returning to find her sister during the Taliban times. His support of the Afghan film industry and Afghan refugee artists in Iran has been one of the main reasons for the surge of qualified Afghan filmmakers.

However, perhaps the best-known Afghan filmmaker is Afghan Film Director, Sidiqullah Barmak. In 2003 he picked up a fringe award at the 2003 Cannes Fìlm Festival, the main prize at the New Movie and New Media Festival 2003 in Montreal and the Sutherland Trophy at the 2003 London Film Festival for his feature film 'Osama', which tells the story of a 12-year-old girl forced to disguise herself as a boy in order to survive.

Afghanistan has a registered Film Union, which is part of the Artists' Union of Afghanistan. It is now independent from state control, under the leadership of filmmaker Timor Shah Hakimyar. At the time of the Soviets the first Film Union was controlled by the government, who dictated the type of films to be made. At that time though, it was a big step for Afghan artists to have an organisation to protect their rights.

Although there is no formal film school in Afghanistan, the University of Kabul’s Faculty of Fine Arts offers a theatre training programme which includes acting for the cinema. AÏNA, Afghan Film and Kabul Film also run apprenticeship programs to encourage young filmmakers.

In 2002 French NGO AÏNA opened the Afghan Media and Culture Centre in Kabul. It trains cinematographers in co-operation with Afghan Film and has also developed a touring film caravan programme, again in collaboration with Afghan Film, with a view to bringing film to outlying areas of the country. In the spring and summer of 2002 the caravan showed three films about women’s health issues and pre- and post-natal care sponsored by the World Health Organisation, landmine awareness sponsored by the Mine Action Centre and the history of the Loya Jirga sponsored by UNAMA, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. The fourth and final film was a classic Buster Keaton comedy. For many in the countryside it was the first time they had seen a film and there were at times up to 1,000 people in the audience and for the whole tour an estimated 500,000 viewers. New films, both educational and recreational, are being produced especially for the film caravan, including a 52-minute movie about women, filmed by women, a film about the Afghan heritage sponsored by the Society for the Preservation of Afghanistan’s Cultural Heritage (SPACH) and a 30-minute Afghan comedy.

Further support for the Afghan film sector has been provided by Keiko Nisigaki and Keiko Dan, two Japanese women who lived in Afghanistan through the Taliban years and recently donated $10,000 to Afghan Film. They and Iranian film maker Makmalbaf have also supported an ‘Experimental Foundation for Young Filmmakers’ which is creating new facilities so that young film apprentices can produce short films and then sell them or enter them in international film festivals. The financial rewards they gain from this will be theirs so that they can reinvest in their next film. In this way it will be possible for them to make five or six films a year with different directors, cinematographers, scriptwriters and actors.