Afghan Star

StarStarsStarsStarsStars (5.00 out of 5)

Posted by: NomadsLand Editors

Posted on: November 25, 2009

Posted in: Feature Documentary, Featured, Global Crisis, Human Rights, Indigenous Culture, Middle East, Video

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Afghan Star
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In Afghanistan you risk your life to sing. After thirty years of war and five devastating years of Taliban rule, pop culture is beginning to return to the country. Since 2005, millions have been tuning in to Tolo TV’s wildly popular American Idol-style series Afghan Star. Like its Western predecessors, people compete for a cash prize and record deal. More surprisingly, the contest is open to everyone across the country despite gender, ethnicity or age. Two thousand people audition, including three extremely brave women. And when viewers vote for their favorites via cell phone, it is, for many, their first encounter with the democratic process.

After two successful years, NomadsLand’s Films That Matter screenings is being rebranded the “NOMADSLAND PRESENTS FILM” SERIES in conjunction with Busboys and Poets. Our aim this year is to coordinate closely with Washington, D.C. area nonprofits and social enterprises to create 8 themed nights on important social issues and frame the discussion with a fantastic feature documentary.

On January 3, 2010 in Washington, DC, NomadsLand Presents:

AFGHAN STAR

RSVP Here:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=149566718527&index=1

Sundance Film Festival - World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary

Sundance Film Festival - World Cinema Directing Award: Documentary

In Afghanistan you risk your life to sing. After thirty years of war and five devastating years of Taliban rule, pop culture is beginning to return to the country. Since 2005, millions have been tuning in to Tolo TV’s wildly popular American Idol-style series Afghan Star. Like its Western predecessors, people compete for a cash prize and record deal. More surprisingly, the contest is open to everyone across the country despite gender, ethnicity or age. Two thousand people audition, including three extremely brave women. And when viewers vote for their favorites via cell phone, it is, for many, their first encounter with the democratic process.
Winner of the Directing and Audience Awards in Sundance’s 2009 World Documentary competition, Havana Marking’s timely and moving film follows the dramatic stories of four young finalists—two men and two women—as they hazard everything to become the nation’s favorite performer. By observing the Afghani people’s relationship to its pop culture, Afghan Star is the perfect window into a country’s tenuous, ongoing struggle for modernity. What Americans consider frivolous entertainment is downright revolutionary—and more human—in this troubled part of the wo
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