A history of Afghan cinema

The first screenings

Moving pictures reached Afghanistan in the early twentieth century, but at first only a privileged few could see them. Under Emir Habibullah Khan, who reigned from 1901 to 1919, films were shown at the royal court. The public had to wait: the first open screenings, of silent films, took place at Paghman near Kabul in the 1920s.

A film released in 1946, Love and Friendship (Ishq wa Dosti), is commonly cited as the first Afghan feature. It marked the start of a slow effort to make films in Afghanistan rather than simply import them.

The movie theaters of Kabul

In the 1950s Kabul gained its own movie theaters. The Behzad Cinema is remembered as one of the first, and the Park Cinema as one of the earliest large venues. Others followed with names that older Kabulis still recite: the Pamir, the Ariana, the Aryob, the Barikot and the Baharestan. They showed Indian, Iranian, Soviet and Western films to packed audiences.

In 1964 Like Eagles, directed by Faiz Khairzada, was made in Kabul, and the ambition to build a real industry grew.

Afghan Film and the golden decades

In 1968 the state founded Afghan Film, a national film organization based in Kabul. It produced newsreels and documentaries that recorded the life of the country, and over time it turned to features. Titles from the 1970s include Rozhai Dushwar (Difficult Days, 1974) and Mujasemeha Mekhandand (The Statues Are Laughing, 1976).

In the 1980s, during the Soviet period, Afghan Film made color features such as Farar (Run Away, 1984) and trained young directors abroad. Siddiq Barmak was one of them: he completed his degree in film directing at VGIK in Moscow in 1987.

Civil war and the Taliban ban

After 1992 Kabul was torn apart by fighting between rival factions, and its cinemas and studios were damaged. Barmak became head of Afghan Film in 1992 and spent those years trying to keep the institution alive.

When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996 they banned cinema outright. Movie theaters were closed or attacked, watching films became a crime, and the Taliban burned the reels they could find. Barmak has said that about 2,600 films from the national archive were destroyed.

Revival after 2001

When the Taliban government fell in November 2001, Kabul's cinemas began to reopen within days, and crowds returned to the Bakhtar Cinema. International attention followed. The Iranian director Mohsen Makhmalbaf had already brought Afghanistan to the Cannes Film Festival with Kandahar (2001). Two years later an Afghan director did the same.

1. 2003

   Osama by Siddiq Barmak, the first film shot entirely in Afghanistan since the ban, wins at Cannes and London and then the Golden Globe.

2. 2004

   Earth and Ashes by Atiq Rahimi, coproduced by Barmak, screens at Cannes.

3. 2007

   Zolykha's Secret, directed by Horace Ahmad Shansab, is released.

4. 2008

   Opium War wins the critics' award at the Rome Film Festival.

5. 2012

   Buzkashi Boys, filmed in Kabul, is nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film.

6. 2013

   Wajma, an Afghan Love Story by Barmak Akram wins a screenwriting award at the Sundance Film Festival.

7. 2016

   Wolf and Sheep by Shahrbanoo Sadat wins the top prize of the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes.

8. 2019

   Hava, Maryam, Ayesha by Sahraa Karimi premieres at Venice; Karimi becomes the first woman to lead Afghan Film.

A new generation of women directors

One of the most important changes after 2001 was the arrival of women behind the camera. Saba Sahar, often described as Afghanistan's first female film director, released The Law in 2004. Roya Sadat, Alka Sadat, Sahraa Karimi and Shahrbanoo Sadat followed, making features, documentaries and television drama. Their stories are told on our page about women in Afghan cinema.

Decline and exile

The revival was fragile. Many of Kabul's old movie theaters were never properly restored, and in 2020 the demolition of the historic Cinema Park provoked protests from artists and activists who saw it as the loss of a shared memory.

When the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, filmmakers who could leave did so. Sahraa Karimi was evacuated from Kabul and later settled in Italy. Afghan Film continued only in a reduced form, and in May 2025 Afghan media, including Amu TV, reported that the Taliban administration had dissolved the organization. The fate of its archive, thousands of reels recording decades of Afghan life, remains uncertain.

Why the archive matters

For a country whose history is so often told by outsiders, the Afghan Film archive is a record made by Afghans themselves: newsreels of Kabul streets, documentaries about village life, features that show how people dressed, laughed and argued. It has already survived one attempt at erasure because a few people refused to let it burn. Its survival now depends on the same kind of courage, and on international attention.