Between The Fronts

Underground in Taliban Country

 A Film by Ghafoor Zamani 

Afghans understand being between the fronts best of all. In Afghanistan, being between the fronts is hell. The fronts are invisible, anyone can be the enemy, only family and ethnic rela-tives are to be trusted.  Ghafoor Zamani and his team travel from Kabul, via many diversions, 500 kilometres into Southern Afghanistan. They are on the trail of Maulawi Idris, a religious leader of the Taliban. He will be explaining the Taliban´s views on war and religion to them. 

Opium Village - The Absurd War of a Commissioner

A film by Ghafoor Zamani

Head commissioner Nasari already has a complicated job but now the government in Kabul wants to show the whole world that Afghanes are not just a nation which is addicted to opium and heroin.
Therefor commissioner Nasari has the thankless job to destroy all the poppy seed fields in the north of Afghanistan. But after the long civil war the farmers discovered poppy seed as a profitable source of income. The only problem, indirectly all of them even Nasaris police officers depend on poppy seed. [more]

Life in a Boarding School

Stowe, the Garden of Knowledge 

Two Ghafoor Zamani dokumentations

In Buckingham almost everything is royal - even the pubs are named after this or that King or Queen – but the real regent here is Stowe, a well-known public school catering for the upper classes. [more]

PAKISTAN: The School of Terror

A film by Ghafoor Zamani

There is a lot of soldidarity with the earthquake victims in Pakistan. International aid is in full swing. For the West, however, the Pakistani ruler, General Musharraf is a contentious ally. On one hand he is needed for the fight against terrorism and the Al Qaida – and on the other he has done little so far against the radical Islamic beliefs in his country. Many suspected terrorists in Europe have a Pakistani background – the Koran schools there often teach radical anti-western interpretations of the scriptures. Even in Musharrafs headquarters, the army and the intelligence corps are showing radical Islamic tendencies. How great is the danger of the atomic power Pakistan landing fully in the hands of  the Islamists?

My Future Lies in China

A German Businessman in Shanghai

A film by Ghafoor Zamani

15 years ago, the German businessman Joe Wickert saw his future lying in the district of Pudong in Shanghai. At that time the land was being used for growing vegetables, and the economic success of China was just a distant vision. Nowadays the only things growing there are high-rises. Perhaps the tall towers are making investors dizzy by suggesting that endlessly high profits can be made there. [more]

Taliban Country 2005

A film by Ghafoor Zamani

The Taliban have been driven from power in Afghanistan, but that does not mean they’ve disappeared. In the Pashtun region of Afghanistan, the former heartland of the Taliban, they still exert a dangerous influence, condemning the changes in Kabul and stirring anti-western resentment. In this documentary, the Afghan born filmmaker Ghafoor Zamani takes a journey back to his roots, to the Pashtun region where he grew up and where his father was murdered by the Taliban. He traces the developments since the war and gives viewers an insight into the real Afghanistan, far away from Kabul, where the world’s press rarely ventures to. [more]

Afghanistan’s Opium Economy, 2005

A film by Ghafoor Zamani

Afghanistan is the world’s largest supplier of opium, the raw ingredient of heroin. Officially, poppy farming is illegal there, but since the fall of the Taliban production has risen drastically. Growing opium poppies provides a livelihood for many Afghans, including civil servants and politicians, who all profit from this illegal industry. The new government in Kabul has promised to fight against the drugs trade, but the reality in Afghanistan’s northern region of Badachsan looks very different. This documentary portrays the situation of ordinary farmers in Badachsan who lack a viable alternative to opium poppy farming. [more]

The World’s Most Dangerous Sea Passage

A film by Ghafoor Zamani

Up to 900 ships cruise at slow speed everyday through the straits -  offering an ideal target for modern piratry. Sumatra is simultaneously the location of a bloody separatist rebellion, which the fundamentalist Muslim movement "Free Aceh" are carrying out against the central powers in Jakarta. [more]

Explosive Pakistan

A film by Ghafoor Zamani

There are high military officials in Pakistan who have close connections to Islamic groups including the Taliban. The Taliban in Pakistan unhesitatingly admit that they can achieve much more with the nuclear power of Pakistan, than they could in Afghanistan. President Musharraf’s radical focus  towards the west led to the various Islamic parties joining together in 2002 to form the alliance Muttahida Majalis-i-Amal (MMA). The Alliance of Islamists achieved a majority during the elections in two of the four provinces in Pakistan -  and the trend is on the increase.