Kabul: In a dimly lit auditorium in Kabul's French Cultural Center, the audience watches as the camera follows a group of raffish street kids cracking their private jokes. As they break into laughter at the punchline, their giggles are echoed by a group of schoolboys at the back of the auditorium, who have sneaked in for the show. At the Kabul International and Short Film Festival, cinema often has this way of connecting with life.

In its fourth year, the festival brought together the works of filmmakers from across Afghanistan. Taken together, these images talk of a country that is torn yet determined to celebrate its survival and richness.

"People outside see same old images of war and suffering, but Afghanistan has a rich history and folklore. We would like to show that reality to the world as well," says Saeed Mohd Zia, whose film Saaya (ShaIdow) deals with the mental turmoil of a soldier.

The themes at the screenings ranged from a worms eye-view of the power problem of the growing city to more experimental work exploring urban landscapes. "Personally, I don't like to give pictures of war. There is life, there are weddings, there are small stories that deserve to be told," says Barmak Akram, Paris-based Afghan director and member of the jury, whose neo-realist film Kabuli Kid has won acclaim for its kinetic portrait of the city.

"What this festival brings out is that there is new generation of Afghans who are picking up stories from the street," says Marina Ludemann of the Goethe Institute, Munich, one of the international participants in the festival. "The whole world will be interested in hearing them."

These include documentaries like Mohd Ali Hazara's Once Upon a Time, which follows a young Afghan girl who translates folk tales to tell to children across the city.

"Afghanistan has a very young population, and they don't want to be caught in the mistakes of the older people" says Hazara. "My film shows one such attempt to create a new future for the children of Afghanistan."

While the rough edges on many of the films often showed, Samiullah Nabizadah's short fiction chose to capture the haunting beauty of Kabul's snowy streets as well as the rugged mountains around it. "These are symbols that play out in my story about a young man's struggle with a terminal illness, and his swinging between life and death," says Nabizadah. "Winter in Kabul is the most beautiful season, and the contrast with the white snow and the dark streets were essential parts of the character's conflict in my film."

Since its inception in 2006, the festival has grown to include entries from ninecountries, including India, Pakistan and Spain."There is enthusiasm from abroad to participate," says Rita Sachse-Toussaint, director of the Goethe Institute, Kabul, which supports the festival along with the Alliance Francaise. "But I would like to see it remain a small festival with a regional focus."

For many, the festival was a rare opportunity to soak in the responses of audiences to their work. "When people in Afghanistan hear the word 'cinema' they think it means 'bad' things like singing and dancing. At this festival, we can talk with people who understand our passion," says Ibrahim Bamiyani, whose Dream of Light struck a chord with an audience plagued by constant power cuts.

Inevitably, a festival of this kind came with its share of organisational nightmares, butthe security issues that came up were of a different kind. "The biggest problem was finding common ground between our Afghan partners, who often have conflicts of which we are not aware, and trying to get everyone to work together," says Sachse-Toussaint. "Also, it is difficult to get an audience since people are not used to events like this in Kabul yet."Despite these hiccups, points out Ludemann, "It is incredible to have sustained a film festival in a city where everything has been destroyed, and everyday life is a struggle."

For Akram, the screenings and workshops at the festival are part of the process of creating a more original cinema in Afghanistan. "Most filmmakers here are self taught, and don't really know what style they are aiming for. The screenings of foreign films exposes them to ideas beyond Bollywood." The biggest tribute to the festival, however, came from Ali Ghani, one of the schoolboys trickling out with the audience. "Until now, I thought cinema was just heroes and fighting. I didn't know there could be films about people like me."