Kabul Express director Kabir Khan: Taliban ideology won’t allow Afghanistan film industry to survive

Filmmaker Kabir Khan is deeply disturbed and concerned about the ongoing Afghanistan crisis with Taliban gaining power, and he fears it will first cut the entertainment cord of the country.

“All of this is bizarre that after 20 years an organisation like the Taliban can come back,” says Khan, who started his cinematic journey by capturing the simmering tensions and conflicts in Afghanistan and Taliban.

He adds, “It makes me remember one little incident from my documentary, where we were interviewing some of the Taliban members in 2001 post the 9/11 incident. And one senior Taliban member just looked straight into my camera, said, ‘You think we are gone, we will be back’. The confidence with which he said at that time sent chills down my spine. And now, when I remember that statement, it haunts me.”

At this moment, the filmmaker, who picked his documentary subject to make his directorial debut with Kabul Express (2006), is worried about the safety of the people, women, and artistes. He says his friends have been sending SOS calls, but he is unable to help them, and that breaks his heart.

“One of my friends and actor Bashir has been forced to run away from his house and go underground after his place was ransacked by the Taliban,” reveals the 52-year-old.

The director feels artistes are anyway soft targets because they are “high profile and recognisable”.

He expresses, “In the first avatar of Taliban in 1996 -2001, forget films, they did not even allow photography. The only photographers that were allowed to operate were passport photographers.”

And that why he has “serious doubts” about whether they will let the “pretty dynamic” film industry survive. “A lot of small scale films were being made. I don’t know whether they will be allowed to continue or whether anybody will have the courage to try and continue. Because everybody knows their opinions on cinema and music,” he says, adding, “I doubt that the film industry will be allowed to survive. The Taliban ideology will not allow them to continue.”

All of this will have a ripple effect on Afghanistan as a shooting destination. “And that has also been one of the saddest things because when we went to shoot Kabul Express, they were so excited about films being shot there, hoping more films will follow. That also didn’t happen because of security concerns,” Khan points.

Now, with things changing in Afghanistan drastically, asked if he plans to do a follow up to his documentary and the filmmaker says, “I am acutely aware and sensitive to what is happening out there. It is just early days, and I want to wait to see how it all pans out over the next month. But there could be a possibility of doing some work.”