2015 Directed by Pietra Brettkelly
Afghanistan's film history might well have have been lost forever, if not for the brave custodians who risked their lives to conceal films from the Taliban regime. This is a chronicle of their attempts to preserve and restore thousands of hours of film.
A FLICKERING TRUTH : highlighting the importance of film
“I am truly passionate about everything I do,” says New Zealand filmmaker Pietra Brettkelly. “The risks I’ve taken in making some of my documentaries exhibit either passion or craziness.” On her website she goes on to admit that she has always been excited by stories that matter, the personal journeys that reflect a bigger issue, “and my Irish heritage has not only given me red hair but also a thirst for story-telling”.
With parents that took her everywhere from Papua New Guinea to Portugal and fostered within their daughter a wonder and appreciation for the diversity of peoples and their stories, it is no surprise that Brettkelly went on to make…
Great visuals. A provoking narrative that created an interesting narrative. The structure was nice, sorta ended on a cliff hangar due to election. However, that's also a positive because it left me wanting to learn more. The subjects of the movie felt like "characters" from a fictitious film. A meta movie because it helps to show the impact film can have. It got me thinking of the cultural impact the films I'm exposed to have and how they reflect.... I liked the match editing of the archival footage with the current stuff; like the sunset, the old buildings, apartments.
The internationalism of cinema is highlighted as we observe a few dedicated souls doing their best to restore the film archive in Afghanistan following decades of war.
This doco unfolds with director Brettkelly allowing us to observe rather than using talking heads or a narrator. It works well and we find ourselves drawn to the archivists, especially "Uncle" Isaaq, who has seen so much in his time - a hunched figure but one for whom film is treasure and critical to his nation's identity and culture. The joy and wonder of the audiences as the films are taken on tour around the country is the satisfying reward.
Pietra Brettkelly's document of a bunch of Afghanis dedicated to restoring their national film archive, in the wake of Taliban destruction of these 'dangerous' cultural artifacts, and with limited means, is equal parts fascinating, enlightening, and sad. Fascinating in its materiality: battered old film canisters and 16mm projectors touring dusty barely developed villages. Enlightening as to the impacts on the everyday populace of the extreme socio-political changes, that have been a near constant part of the country's last 100yrs (at least). Sad in its unwrapping of how much cultural loss is incurred when even a single generation goes without knowledge of who they were and how things have changed. A FLICKERING TRUTH bears witness to the importance of cinema in capturing a nation's cultural memory.
Intriguing to see this New Zealand documentary about the valiant efforts made to save the celluloid treasures of the Afghan Films archive in Kabul, with a particular highlight being the audience scenes as the team of proud Afghan film buffs take their projectors to the provinces and show the 16mm films to the Afghan public, most of whom have lived through invasion after invasion, and more recently the puritanical Taliban regime. These marvelous scenes are reminiscent of the documentary short For The First Time, the 1967 film in which Cuban villagers who had never seen film or TV were shown Charlie Chaplin's 1936 feature Modern Times. It's also interesting to note that thanks to the restoration of Afghan Films, Afghanistan might now boast a better record of its early film history than New Zealand does.
A Flickering Truth is a fantastic documentary which highlights the goal of cultural genocide espoused by terror organisations.
As a documentary about the restoration of Afghanistan's film archive, pulling cans out of the rubble and running the crumbling celluloid through ancient projectors, this can't help but be elegiac. There's certainly no clear future for its films either, but we see them being enjoyed by the people (at least in areas not controlled by the Taliban) and we see the caring dedicated staff, though even those are dying off. A sad tale but an engaging one.
This (obviously) hit so close to home. Afghanistan is so, so, so far removed from what it was. I got teary eyed watching a lot of the archival footage, especially of the Afghan king and queen with the president of the United States... it used to be so peaceful, respected and beautiful. I can't shed enough tears for this.
The subjects were all so charming. Really fell for Isaaq and the gardener. Salt of the Earth type people. Wish my parents could have seen this.
Really inspiring and de-spiring(?) and the same time. So excited to go back and scared out of my fucking mind...
