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Germany | USA 2023
Opening August 14, 2025

Directed by: Ibrahim Nash’at
Writing credits: Ibrahim Nash'at, Talal Derki, Shane Boris
Principal actors: Documentary

The Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 1996, and regained control of Kabul, its capital, on August 31, 2021, following a decade of back and forth fighting with Western military forces. In September 2001, subsequent to attacks on the United States by Al Qaeda’s multiple fronts attacks on the 11th, e.g., the World Trade Center in New York City, US and NATO forces invaded. The joint forces drove the Taliban out for sheltering Al Qaeda; the Taliban then retook Kabul. In the US’s chaotic departure, they abandoned a huge well-stocked and fortified complex, attributed essentially to its CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), nicknamed Hollywoodgate.

Within days of Kabul’s capitulation the Taliban arrive, entering through destruction at Gate 1 accompanied by the Egyptian journalist-director Ibrahim Nash’at who had negotiated permission to film. His guidelines are explicit: only film the Taliban and at Kabul Air Force base, and he is under constant surveillance. The hostility toward Nash’at is lightly disguised. The insurgents’ aim is to transform themselves into a military regime; they now have a solid base to build upon. Intent on good publicity, Nash’at is allowed to follow a high-ranking officer, Mawlawi Mansour, Air Force commander, and a ground solider, fundamentalist Lieutenant M. J. Mukhtar. Nash’at’s camerawork epitomizes “fly on the wall” documentation: half-eaten food left on desks, a printout of an American flag in a locker, Mukhtar wrapping his turban, the Taliban seated in a circle eating and men watching TV commenting about the audacity of full-faced female newscasters. Mansour’s men almost salivate taking stock of the enormity of their “loot” and the number of/types of aircraft left behind. They change hats/head coverings often—why, we wonder. Most amusing is in the gym as they tentatively try out equipment; entering the medical supplies area they comment about the hand “medicine” (sanitizer).

Nash’at filmed more than a year and eventually the men become less curious/aware of his camera. Well into the documentary, a tangible shift occurs, perhaps because of the Taliban’s increasing insidious confidence; during an important military parade helicopters/planes fly over as suicide bombers-on-bikes parade by on ground. Hollywoodgate’s visual tone becomes subtly menacing, its music foreboding. Atanas Georgiev and Marion Tuor’s editing of more than a year of Ibrahim Nash’at’s camerawork is noteworthy, accompanied by Volker Bertelmann’s perceptive score. Of all the things he was forbidden to film, Nash’at’s sagacious choices irrefutably expose a return to the status quo ante. Women are not to seen anywhere near the compound; Hollywoodgate’s introduction sequence paints a bleak picture. Women’s resilience in the face of such adversity must be paramount. 91 minutes (Marinell H.)