LA Premiere Screening and Discussion

Afghan Star

Monday, June 15, 2009
7:00 pm PT
Los Angeles

Can a reality show give the young populace of a country their first experience with democracy? Can music be the impetus for the formation of a new national identity? These are some of the many questions explored in the compelling new documentary Afghan Star. Winner of the World Cinema Documentary audience and directing awards at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, the film had its Los Angeles premiere at The Paley Center for Media.
 
In her first feature-length documentary, director Havana Marking chronicles the story of four young contestants vying to be crowned the winners of the Afghan version of American Idol and in doing so brings us one of the most affecting and insightful looks into the soul of the region.
 
Afghan Star is a riveting look at the country’s struggle for modernity after decades of Taliban rule. In the faces of its young contestants, each representing a different region of the country with its own levels of freedom, are the hopes and dreams of a people yearning to find their own voice amid the religious, political, and cultural turmoil that they face everyday.
 
Following the screening, Marking, along with former BBC reporter and UCLA visiting scholar Nushin Arbabzadah, discussed the many challenges facing the region in a conversation moderated by former U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands, Dr. Cynthia P. Schneider.
 
The filmmaker noted how profound the simple act of voting for a favorite contestant has become for viewers of the show—estimated at over a third of the population. “For the first time, a woman’s vote counts as much as a man’s vote, a young person's vote counts as much as an elder”—a truly extraordinary development in a country where 60 percent of the population is under twenty-one. Afghan Star, which opens theatrically in New York on June 26 and in LA on July 24 with other cities to follow, is a true testament to media’s power to affect social change.

For more information about Afghan Star, including release dates, please visit the film’s official website.