NEW YORK, NY.- In a nondescript concrete building along a busy street in the old city of Kabul, men file into a dark, smoke-filled theater and take their seats. Soon the projector roars to life, and the audience begins to laugh, whistle and even dance as the latest Pakistani cinematic drama illuminates the big screen before them. In his new book, The Forbidden Reel (
Daylight, April 30, 2014), American-born photographer Jonathan Saruk documents the cinemas of Kabul -- entertainment venues that had been banned under the Taliban, but which have experienced a rebirth since the U.S. invasion 12 years ago.
The idea for this project was hatched in June 2009 when Saruk was in Kabul photographing the Mr. Afghanistan Body Building Competition. The event was held at Park Cinema, an old, un-renovated movie house in the Shawr-e-Naw neighborhood of Kabul that is once again an entertainment hot spot. Saruk was curious to see what the space was like as a functioning movie theatre, so he visited there again on a return trip to Afghanistan in 2010. It became clear to him that Kabul's cinema culture was a vibrant and remarkable facet of city life. As it was Saruk's mission to present a more layered picture of Afghanistan than the images of poverty, disaster, and war that Western audiences were accustomed to seeing in the media, he decided to document the cinemas of Kabul.
In her essay A Less Faraway Land, Annick Shen writes, "[Saruk's] photographs create a bridge for people to gain a more nuanced understanding of Afghanistan and possibly change their visual perception of existing stereotypes ... Through Forbidden Reel, Afghanistan feels less like a faraway foreign land. Saruk's imagery shows a modern, vibrant Afghanistan, where people continue to conduct regular daily activities and experience joy, even while living in a tremendously stressful environment."
In The Forbidden Reel, Saruk documents Afghan men of all ages seated in movie theatres looking captivated as they watch foreign films imported from Pakistan, India, the U.S., and other countries featuring action heroes with guns and bloodied victims, voluptuous heroines in billowing skirts and sparkling pantsuits, and lovers locked in a passionate embrace. We see men outside the theatre on the bustling streets looking at movie posters and lining up to buy tickets as the women pass by. The interiors of the projection rooms where the projectionists still hand roll the film the old fashioned way. Stacks of rusty film canisters, one marked the Bride of Chucky, an American horror comedy film, another labeled Police Force, a Hindi crime action film. Vendors selling popular street food snacks, including an Afghan version of the "hamburger," to audience members. Young Afghans dancing joyfully in front of the movie screens in tandem with the performers. Moviegoers relaxing in the theatre lobby during intermission.
In his essay Memories from Movies in Kabul, Javed Rezayee, an Afghan filmmaker living and working in New York writes: "Inside the theater was safe. There were no interruptions from outside ... The setting was of the 1950s with wooden seats ... A dramatic music would kick the movie off, and, having my 'ham' burger unwrapped, I would lie back, letting myself be transported to great India." He writes about Saruk's book: "I hardly ever looked back at the movie theaters in Afghanistan with such nostalgia as I did when I looked at the memory-jogging images in this book. These photos took me back to the dusty streets of Kabul ... "
The Forbidden Reel provides an alternative narrative to life in a violence-plagued city where going to the movies, for many, is a respite from the harsh reality that lies outside the confines of the theater. It is Saruk's hope that his book will connect Western audiences with Afghanistan on a more personal, humanistic level by showing them a facet of everyday life in Kabul, where Afghans, like us, love to go to the movies. While today women are not often comfortable in many movie theatres in Afghanistan, there are signs this is changing with the opening of modern movie theatres in shopping malls where women are increasingly attending by themselves.
Jonathan Saruk is a freelance photographer based in Malmö, Sweden. His work has been published in The New Yorker, Neon Magazine, IO Donna, The Sunday Times Magazine, and his photographs from The Forbidden Reel were recently selected for the 2012 PDN Photo Annual and American Photography 28. The work has also been featured on msnbc.com, wired.com's RAW File blog and NPR's The Picture Show blog. Saruk is a Featured Photographer with Reportage by Getty Images.
Javed Rezayee is an Afghan living and working in New York City. He graduated from Tufts Univeristy in 2010 on an international scholarship. Rezayee has translated, subtitled, and provided consultation for documentary films on Afghanistan including Opium Brides produced by Frontline / PBS, and Snow Leopards of Afghanistan created by National Geographic.
Annick Shen is the Senior Communications Coordinator for Photography at the Open Society Foundations and also works with Documentary Photography Project. Prior to working at the Open Society, Shen was a Senior Photo Editor at Reportage by Getty Images where she managed a roster of 11 award-winning photojournalists. She worked as a photo editor at numerous publications including ESPN, Men's Journal, Newsweek, New York magazine, The New York Times, and Time Asia.
