Taxi to the Dark Side

STARTING FROM ZERO documents the journey of three refugees — a female boxer, a TV personality and a journalist — caught in the crosshairs following the U.S. military’s sudden withdrawal from Afghanistan. Fleeing for their lives, they are transported to an unlikely luxury compound in Qatar before making their eventual journey to the United States and Germany, where they must restart their lives and confront the deferment of their dreams.

The four Afghan refugees who have applied for asylum in Austria strike up the song, “The caravan moves on” again and again. Encouraged by the journalist Lucy Ashton to record their lives on their smartphone cameras as a video diary, the friends film their precarious daily routine between visits to authorities, small jobs, and changing accommodations. Yet even when hope is lost, one certainty remains: the power of friendship.

What happens when you can no longer practice the profession that is part of your identity? You Can’t Stop the Music is a portrait from today’s Afghanistan, where life in the shadow of the Taliban can at times seem surreal. When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, Akbar Adeli was a music student at Kabul University. For conservative Afghans, music had been suspect even before the Taliban takeover, but it soon became a gamble with one’s life – especially since Akbar plays Western pop music.

"What happens after detainees are released from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility? The answer to that question has, for the most part, been shrouded in secrecy."

Haji Omar and his three sons belong to the Lakankhel, a Pashtoon tribal group in northeastern Afghanistan. The film focuses on his family: Haji Omar, the patriarch; Anwar, the eldest, his father's favorite, a pastoralist and expert horseman; Jannat Gul, cultivator and ambitious rebel; and Ismail, the youngest, attending school with a view to a job as a government official.

Marzia, My Friend is the story of an Afghan woman in her twenties, who like all young people dreams of love, freedom and an interesting job. She dreams of peace and independence, but because she lives in Afghanistan, her dreams are revolutionary. Ultimately Marzia’s story becomes a symbol of the wider struggle of Afghan women: it is about the right to make decisions about your own life. The film follows Marzia’s life from spring 2011 to the end of 2014, when international troops were due to leave Afghanistan.

Armed only with their cameras, Peabody and Emmy Award-winning conflict Journalist Mike Boettcher, and his son, Carlos, provide unprecedented access into the longest war in U.S. history.

A documentary about the corrupt health care system in The United States who's main goal is to make profit even if it means losing people’s lives. "The more people you deny health insurance the more money we make" is the business model for health care providers in America.

During the 1980s, Russia fought a disastrous war in Afghanistan. Shot by a Western crew, the 40 minute film includes footage of combat missions with the Spetsnaz elite units, helicopter gunship pilots from a Kabul-based Air Assault Unit flying missions, the patrolling of the Salang mountain pass and the military hospital in Kabul. Soviet General Lev Serebrov referred to the making of the film as "An experiment in glasnost".

The dramatic story of a Gitmo detainee released from the controversial U.S. prison after 14 years. With NPR, a report on the struggle over freeing prisoners once deemed international terrorists. Also, the untold history of the Guantanamo Bay prison.

An intimate and uncompromising portrayal, filmed over a year, of the day to day struggles of a new generation of children addicted to heroin, trying to find their way in the new Afghanistan.