Afghan Film Festival in NYC

From the New York Times Globespotters Blog:

“Opium War” Kicks Off Afghanistan Film Festival
By Gary Moskowitz
The Great Game: Afghanistan Film Festival A scene from “The Boy Who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan.”
LONDON The rationale behind an upcoming Afghanistan film festival in London came about during a trip to Afghanistan in November of 2006. Zahra Qadir and her friend Dan Gorman were there working on a short film called “Circus for Life,” about a therapeutic circus for children in Kabul.
While making their documentary, the two filmmakers noticed that Afghans liked talking with them about movies. Images of the outside world – of other people’s ideas and ways of life – were exciting.
Ms. Qadir and Mr. Gorman’s experiences laid the groundwork for “The Great Game: Afghanistan Film Festival,” which runs from May 1-10 at London’s Tricycle Theatre (269 Kilburn High Road; 011-44-20-7328-1000, nearest tube: Kilburn, on the Jubilee line). The film screenings are part of a larger festival of plays, exhibitions and discussions about Afghanistan that began April 17 and run through June 14. The first incarnation of festival, called Reel Afghanistan, screened in Edinburgh in February and March of 2008.
The festival opens on May 1 with “Opium War,” directed by Siddiq Barmak, a dark comedy about two American soldiers who wind up stranded in an Afghan opium field after a helicopter crash. The British director Lucy Gordon’s documentary, “This is My Destiny,” reports on opium from the perspective of mothers using the drug to calm their crying babies, as well as long-term addicts in Kabul.
The festival continues with screenings of such films as “Rabia Balkhi,” Afghanistan’s first feature film made in 1965, about the first and only queen of Afghanistan; “Voice of the Moon” (opens May 3, with a Q. & A. with the filmmakers), made by two filmmakers who were embedded with the Mujahedin for two months; “The Boy Who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan” (opens May 6), about the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan; “Beauty Academy of Kabul” (opens May 5), about a group of American hairdressers who travel to Kabul; and “Afghan Star” (May 2, with a Q&A with the filmmaker), a documentary on Afghanistan’s version of American Idol.
The complete film festival schedule is here, the complete low-down on the entire festival is here, and more information on the Tricycle Theatre is here