When in 1994 the Taliban announced a long list of bans that were to be observed by the Afghans, it included among others following regulations: it was forbidden to listen to music, it was forbidden to depict human figures, and it was forbidden to fly kites. This law was in effect until 2002, the time when the military-political organization Northern Alliance supported by the American special forces regained control over Afghanistan. It seemed, that the war that has been fought since 70. was over. Today, when the Taliban (according to unauthorized information) have recaptured half of the country, it seems more and more probable, that the kites would soon disappear again from the Afghan sky. In 2006 in the Art School in Kabul a one month long film course “Kabul – My City” was held by young polish director Jacek Szarański (a graduate from the Krzysztof Kieślowski Faculty of Radio and Television at the Śląski University). Twelve most talented students – for the first time in their lives – were given cameras and professional help. And no more than that. They themselves came up with the ideas what they want their films to be about, and in what way they would show Kabul. They didn’t film either barbed wires, police stations and military camps, or the Taliban or Americans. They trained their lenses on their closest surrounding – neighbor’s children, ubiquitous kites and themselves. Owing to that “Kites” have become a record of the present day Kabul from the perspective of an Afghan eighteen-year-old. It became also a story about how a film passion is awakened in young painters and musicians. With the help of Jacek Petrycki’s camera we are witnessing their journey beginning with frantic attempts at taking stunning pictures of rickshaw wheels turning, continuing through the time when the camera ceases to be a toy and becomes a tool, up to this amazing moment, when standing in front of their main character they forget the camera and start to listen. Because a documentary changes not only the world, but it also changes the documentalist himself.

FILM REPRESENTED BY THE KRAKOW FILM FOUNDATION