Afghanistan: A Tale of Three Cities looks beyond the familiar narrative of failure and war to examine a more complex Afghanistan on the eve of the international military drawdown. As US and coalition forces prepared to leave, the country was often described only in terms of violence, wasted money and looming collapse. This film asks whether that picture was too simple.
Through a journey across Afghanistan, the documentary explores both the deep failures of the intervention and the changes that had taken root since 2001: new schools and hospitals, improved roads and airports, expanding communications, electricity networks and the fragile growth of state institutions. It does not ignore the war’s human cost, civilian casualties, missed opportunities and the erosion of Afghan trust, but it also looks for the stories that complicate the idea of Afghanistan as an inevitable disaster.
Made by photographer and filmmaker John D McHugh in collaboration with People & Power producer Eki Rrahmani, the film forms part of their wider body of work together on Afghanistan for Al Jazeera English.
Afghanistan: A Tale of Three Cities is a sober, ground-level portrait of a country still at war, but also still struggling to define a future beyond occupation, insurgency and foreign withdrawal.
