In 2021, a few days after the US Army pulled out of Afghanistan, the Taliban took over the Hollywoodgate military base that was abandoned by the Americans and full of weapons and equipment – part of the over $7 billion in U.S. armaments left to the Taliban. The new head of the Taliban air force, Commander Malawi Mansour, orders it all inventoried and repaired. Among Mansour’s subordinates is former fighter Mukhtar, who is aiming to build a military career and avenge the war. With unprecedented audaciousness, Egyptian director Ibrahim Nash’at spends a year inside Afghanistan following their progress as they transform from a fundamentalist militia into a heavily armed military regime.

Director Ibrahim Nash’at: “In the style of a Shakespearean drama with power at its main axis, Hollywoodgate follows soldiers who become generals and generals who become totalitarians. In places where a camera has never been permitted, I use an intimate, observant eye to see the lives of our two characters. My goal is that we can see through the ways they present themselves and understand the truth of their ambitions for control — of women, of their countrymen, of their larger geo-political region. 

In Pashto, Persian Dari and English with subtitles in Latvian and English.