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Talkhouse

Gulistan Mirzaei and Elizabeth Mirzaei are the directors and producers of the short film Three Songs for Benazir, which won jury awards at several Oscar®-qualifying festivals including Full Frame, Yamagata, and Odense, was shortlisted for the Cinema Eye Honors and is now streaming on Netflix. Gulistan is a director from Afghanistan who spent part of his life as a refugee in Iran before returning to Kabul in 2001. He assisted the late Faheem Dashty, editor-in-chief of Kabul Weekly, the first independent newspaper to be published in Kabul after the departure of the Taliban, and was mentored by award-winning director Siddiq Barmak (Osama). Elizabeth is a director and cinematographer of nonfiction films whose work has been featured in films thats screened at Venice and Toronto Film Festivals, among others. She is a Film Independent Fellow, a Moving Picture Institute Cinematography Fellow, and a Sundance Co//ab Advisor. Elizabeth and Gulistan’s first feature, Laila at the Bridge, won awards at numerous festivals including CPH:DOX, Bergen, and Santa Barbara and had a theatrical run in the UK at Bertha DocHouse. Elizabeth and Gulistan now live in California with their two daughters.

Gulistan Mirzaei and Elizabeth Mirzaei

Film

In Afghanistan, Love Blossoms Against Violence

Mariam Ghani is the director and producer of <a href="https://www.dekanalog.com/films/what-we-left-unfinished" target="_blank" rel="noopener">What We Left Unfinished</a>, a documentary about Communist-era filmmakers in Afghanistan and the action movies they were never able to complete, which opened in theatres and virtual cinemas nationwide on August 6 through Dekanalog. She previously co-wrote Afghanistan: A Lexicon with her father, Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, co-created the Afghan Films online archive with Pad.ma, and served as an archival producer for the recent ARTE series Afghanistan: The Wounded Land. Ghani’s short films and multiple-channel installations have been presented by IFFR, CPH:DOX, Lincoln Center, MoMA, and the National Gallery, among others, and are in the permanent collections of such institutions as the Guggenheim, the Smithsonian, the Arab American National Museum and the Sharjah Art Foundation (UAE). In 2020, she had solo museum shows in Houston and Louisville. Ryan Lee Gallery in New York represents her short-form, installation, and photographic work. What We Left Unfinished is Ghani’s first feature; she is currently in production on her second feature, Dis-Ease.

Mariam Ghani

Why I Stopped Making Films in the Art World

Benjamin Gilmour is the writer-director of Jirga, opening in select US cinemas, premiering with director and actor Q&amp;A events on July 26th at Village East Cinema NYC and August 2 at Laemmle’s Music Hall, Beverly Hills, CA; see <a href="http://www.benjamingilmour.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">www.benjamingilmour.com</a> for more info. Gilmour is also the writer-director of Paramedico (2012) and Son of a Lion (2008). He is the author of the books Warrior Poets (Pier 9) and Paramedico – Around the World by Ambulance (HarperCollins), a tie-in with his film of the same name. His latest book, The Gap, is published by Penguin. He lives in Northern New South Wales, Australia.

Benjamin Gilmour

Why Shooting My Latest Film in Afghanistan was a Gift

Afghanistan