ironchef
11-20-2001, 05:28 AM
Happy days are here again! :)
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[translated from the German article at http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,168568,00.html]
Kabul - On Monday, for the first time in five years, the largest cinema in the Afghan capitol of Kabul showed a film. Fights over tickets erupted in front of the theater, which has 600 seats. The military police moved in, forced the crowds back, and arrested two men at the start of the showing.
As the first seconds of the popular film "Urudsch" ("Ascension to Heaven") flickered across the screen, the exclusively male audience applauded and cheered loudly. The movie is set in the 80s, and tells the story of three mujadeheen fighting against the Soviet occupation.
Even before the showing ended, men that hadn't made it into the cinema managed to break through police barricades and force their way into the building. Several of them climbed over a metal gate into a balcony on the second floor. The theater management confirmed additional showings for the future. They still had a whole row of films that they had managed to keep hidden during the Taliban's reign.
During the five-year long rule of the radical Islamic Taliban movement, films and television were prohibited in Afghanistan for religious reasons. After the US-supported Northern Alliance took the capitol, these bans were quickly lifed or relaxed. Women, however, are still prohibited from attending the cinema.
--
Curt Hagenlocher
[email protected]
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[translated from the German article at http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,168568,00.html]
Kabul - On Monday, for the first time in five years, the largest cinema in the Afghan capitol of Kabul showed a film. Fights over tickets erupted in front of the theater, which has 600 seats. The military police moved in, forced the crowds back, and arrested two men at the start of the showing.
As the first seconds of the popular film "Urudsch" ("Ascension to Heaven") flickered across the screen, the exclusively male audience applauded and cheered loudly. The movie is set in the 80s, and tells the story of three mujadeheen fighting against the Soviet occupation.
Even before the showing ended, men that hadn't made it into the cinema managed to break through police barricades and force their way into the building. Several of them climbed over a metal gate into a balcony on the second floor. The theater management confirmed additional showings for the future. They still had a whole row of films that they had managed to keep hidden during the Taliban's reign.
During the five-year long rule of the radical Islamic Taliban movement, films and television were prohibited in Afghanistan for religious reasons. After the US-supported Northern Alliance took the capitol, these bans were quickly lifed or relaxed. Women, however, are still prohibited from attending the cinema.
--
Curt Hagenlocher
[email protected]
----- End forwarded message -----
# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
# more info: [email protected] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]