My Childhood, My Country: 20 Years in Afghanistan

In 2014 director Richard Linklater released the Oscar-winning Boyhood – a fictional saga of growing up, filmed with the same cast across twelve years. This film goes one better: filming one cheeky lad growing up across 20 years – and in one of the most dangerous countries in the world. When we first meet Mir he is a mischievous boy of seven living in a cave alongside the recently destroyed Buddhas of Bamiyan in central Afghanistan. For two decades, though all sorts of adventures and misadventures, the film follows his life until, as an adult with a family of his own, he decides to pursue his own career as a news cameraman in Kabul. The film, however, is more than a personal journey – it is an extraordinarily powerful examination of what has – and has not – been achieved in Afghanistan over the past 20 years.

"This film is extraordinary, remarkable, moving, gripping…I can’t say enough good things about it." – KPCC's FilmWeek