Review in the New York Times of Afghan Star, a documentary about the Afghani television show 'Afghan Star' produced for Tolo-TV.
The documentary is excellent (especially its first three-quarters) and deserves an audience. It won a couple of prizes at Sundance earlier in 2009.
Afghan Star” subverts the cliché image of Afghanistan as a nation of intractably primitive, superstitious tribespeople who have little in common with Westerners. Most of the Afghans in the film speak decent English, and the kind of hysteria kicked up by the show is identical to the hoopla surrounding “American Idol.” The popularity of “Afghan Star” among the country’s youth is presented as a hopeful sign that Afghanistan is ready to exchange “guns for music,” to quote one talking head.
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Daoud Sediqi, the show’s presenter and director, is as gung-ho a television personality as Ryan Seacrest. Near the end of the film he declares, “The Taliban is finished.” But what does it say that after attending the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, where “Afghan Star” won the directing and audience awards in the world documentary competition, he didn’t return to his native country and is thought to be seeking asylum in the United States?
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