Frame by Frame

Although 15 years have passed since U.S.-led military forces invaded and occupied Afghanistan, it often seems that very little progress has been made in the nation's movement away from Taliban-era oppression towards a 21st-century concept of a modern republic. Filmmakers Alexandria Bombach and Mo Scarpelli's documentary details how the concept of a free Afghani press is struggling to take root here, profiling four local photojournalists—including Farzana Wahidy and her Pulitzer Prize-winning husband Massoud Hossaini—as they face skepticism, hostility, and threatened violence while trying to document events in a country that is caught in an endless struggle between forces that want to maintain a rigid Islamic theocracy and those trying to inch Afghanistan towards becoming a progressive state where a spirited independent press can operate without fear of reprisal. Considering that very little current news from Afghanistan is relayed via the U.S. media, Frame by Frame offers an invaluable, albeit also harrowing, glimpse into a nation that doesn't seem to have benefited much from the occupation by U.S. and European forces. Indeed, the Afghanistan captured here by the photojournalists appears to be very much locked in a Taliban mind-frame. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)