Everybody knows Kabir Khan from Bajrangi Bhaijaan which starred megastar Salman Khan. He then went on to work with Salman in Tubelight which had a cameo of Shahrukh Khan. But do you know from where he started? He started his journey into films with Kabul Express in 2006 starring John Abraham, Arshad Warsi and produced by Yash Raj. The film was the tale of three journalists taken hostage by Pakistani soldiers in Afghanistan.
But he had a long connection with Afghanistan, before making feature films he was a documentary filmmaker. Most of his documentaries were shot in Afghan locations which showed the life of people in Afghanistan living in harsh conditions under regular threats from the Taliban. While talking to ETimes Kabir recalled of his days in Afghanistan he said, “During my visit to Afghanistan in 1996, before the Taliban had come to power, I was shooting the documentary, and every day the Taliban used to shell the city, rockets would be fired and they would land all over the place. We got death threats from the Taliban during the filming those people helped us again, gave us security, including the government and the locals. It was dangerous and at that point, we left Kabul and came back. Two months later, the Taliban had taken over Kabul. We couldn’t go back for five years.”
Now when the Taliban has returned to Afghanistan he seems worried about filmmakers and the Afghan movie industry. Expressing his concern he said, “These are people who are in the film industry, they are actors, and they are going to be targeted by the Taliban. The last time the Taliban was in power, the films were banned, photography was banned. After the Taliban left, Afghan citizens were making a lot of films. But now, with the Taliban coming back, I have no idea what is going to happen to the film industry.”
