MY AFGHANISTAN – LIFE IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE Breakthrough

Danish journalist and filmmaker Nagieb Khaja arms 30 civilians with high-definition cell phone cameras in war-torn Afghanistan for this jarring, embedded reportage. Infiltrating local towns for personal stories beyond the usual journalistic access, the filmmakers parachute viewers down to emotional epicenters to meet people rarely seen. Among those is the 19-year-old man huddling with his frightened younger siblings as the Taliban fights outside; the 48-year-old health clinician grappling with the mass destruction of his trees by security forces who turned his house into an operations base; the 40-year-old farmer who finds rare peace in prayer and walking in his fields. In such an intense military environment, Khaja and his amateur operators deliver the stuff of zeitgeist from the forbidden zone and, in the process, produce evidence of human resiliency: not even the gravest of strife can completely extinguish the hopes within their hearts and minds.