Kabul, Between Prayers

In Kabul, Between Prayers, Aboozar Amini—whose first feature-length documentary Kabul, City of the Wind opened IDFA in 2018—gains access to the life of 23-year-old Samim: brother, husband, Taliban soldier. The film presents a humanistic and layered portrait of a man who follows a fundamentalist ideology while grappling with human dilemmas and earthly desires.

While on duty at a checkpoint in Kabul, Samim stops a taxi with a drunk woman in the back seat and calms down two drivers after a collision. Meanwhile, he questions his troubled marriage, and his extremist beliefs clash with the unpredictability of real life.

We are also introduced to Samim’s 14-year-old brother Rafi. In intimate close-ups, he’s asked whether he’s in love and what his favorite verse from the Quran is. His shy laugh at the first question, and the firm recitation that follows the second, reveal the contrast within him: the innocence of a child and the early roots of indoctrination. Through refined structure and camerawork, Amini disrupts the reassuring boundary we so often draw between extremism and humanity.