Kites

In 2006, at the Art School in Kabul, a film course "Kabul - My City" was held. Students were given cameras and professional help from a young polish director by the name of Jacek Szaranski. The students came up with the ideas for their films and the style in which they would show Kabul. They focused their lenses on their closest surroundings - neighbors' children, ubiquitous kites and themselves. "Kites" has become a record of the present day Kabul from the perspective of an Afghan teenager. It also became a story about how a film passion is awakened, the difficulty of asking questions and the courage of hearing answers.

Kites had a simple starting point: cameras + youth + Afghanistan. Few people believed that it would succeed. CAMERAS? But there is no electricity! But not so long ago it was impossible there to record a human image. And the dust?! The cameras will be broken after three days and the nearest service is presumably in Moscow, isn’t it? Unless there is no problem at all because they will get stolen on the first day, since they steal there a lot, don’t they? Forget the cameras, but the youth?! They don’t have a TV set at home, and half of them have never been to a cinema and now they are supposed to have camera in their hands and what are they supposed to do with it? And if they do anything, will these “works of art” enchant European audience?

And Afghanistan... Everybody knows everything about Afghanistan because at least once a week you can see it in the news, because either something has been blown out or there is the polish army present there or the Taliban, someone has been kidnapped or has been released, every two weeks you have a catchy headline. And is there anything interesting in this Afghanistan at all? That’s what many friendly people said to us. But well, everyone can be wrong and we went shooting. When you have finally seen the film tell us whether it was worth it.

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Doc Launch 2005 Docu Talents from the East 2005 East European Forum 2004East Silver 2008Ex Oriente Film 2004

IDFF Jihlava 2008
One World FF, Czech Republic 2009
The Critic's Week Award - “Semaine de la Critique 2008” festival in Locarno (Switzerland)
Film Critics Magazine Award - Pärnu International Documentary and Anthropology Festival 2008 (Estonia)
Łódź Art Centre Award - Media Festival in Łódź, "Human in Danger", 2008
Audience Award - Film Festival WATCH DOCS Human Rights in Film, Warsaw 2008
Special Mention and Audience Award - Dialektus European Documentary and Anthropological Film Festival, Budapest 2009
Second Award - International Film Festival "Crossroads of Europe", Lublin 2009
Diploma "for the honesty and sincerity beetwen the author, characters and audience" - 22nd International Film Festival „Message to Man", Petersburg, Russia, 2009
11th Thessaloniki Documentary Festival - Images of the 21st Century
"Ad Hoc: Inconvenient Films 2009", Lithuanina
One World, Slovakia 2009
Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival in Japan, 2009
Special award - 5th International Festival Muslim Cinema "Golden Minbar" in Kazan, Russia 2009
Award for the director - 5th International Festival Muslim Cinema "Golden Minbar" in Kazan, Russia 2009
Planete Doc Review in Warsaw, 2009
31st edition of “Films de Femmes”, France 2009
Silver Award - Anasy Documentary Awards 2010, Abu Dhabi

Kites

Film of the Week: Kites