Event

Afghan Star

Tuesday, June 23 at 7:30pm
$9 Members / $12 Public / Includes Reception
Active Membership Will Be Checked

In Person: Filmmaker HAVANA MARKING

In Afghanistan you risk your life to sing. After 30 years of war and Taliban rule, pop culture has returned to the countryand since 2005, millions are tuning in to Tolo TVs 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 at the Sundance Film Festival, Havana Markings timely and moving film follows the stories of four young finalists as they hazard everything to become the nations favorite performer. By observing the Afghani people's relationship to its pop culture, Afghan Star is the perfect window into a countrys tenuous, ongoing struggle for modernity. What Americans consider frivolous entertainment is downright revolutionaryand more humanin this troubled part of the world.

Afghanistan/UK, 2009, 87 min.