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100 min. Dari.

Inspired by the Communist president Najibullāh's grand project to bring about reconciliation with the mujahidin, the story of Baba concerns two small villages drawn into conflict by a murder, a revenge plot, and the dishonorable dealings of a spy. The villages are finally reconciled by the advice of a wise old man, Baba, who has kept out of all the quarrels that have separated everybody else by retiring to a cave. The character of Baba is based on a real hermit, Baba Firoz, who lived in a cave in Goldara surrounded by tame animals and supposedly lived to be 127 years old.

Juwansher Haidary was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1952 and studied at Kabul University. He is the current head of the Afghan Filmmakers Union. In the early 1970s, together with Toryalai Shafaq and Latif Ahmadi, he founded Ariana Films, Afghanistan's first private film production company. Haidary’s best-known film is Baba. As he himself put it, as an actor he mostly played “police and army officers whenever we needed people.” He spent the 1990s in exile in Tajikistan, returning to Afghanistan in 2001.

Production company Afghan Films (Kabul, Afghanistan). Written and directed by Juwansher Haidary. Cinematography Noor Hashim Abeer. Editing M. Akeem Marzi. Sound Noorullah Multafit. Art director Osman Aleem. Make-up Sayed Khadeem Qubadi. Digital restoration Afghan Films, National Archive of Afghanistan, Indexical Films. With Salaam Tsangi, Wali Talash, Asadullah Aram, Ibrahim Tookhyan, Humayun Pais, Zarghuna Aram.

World sales Rafi Azizi, National Archive of Afghanistan

Photo: © Courtesy of Afghan Films and the National Archive of Afghanistan

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