In 2011, I spent three months in Afghanistan making the documentary The Network. The film is set behind the scenes at the first, largest and most successful television station in Kabul, Tolo TV. I thought it would be surprising, timely and somewhat subversive to make a positive film about Afghanistan in the face of the impending withdrawal of foreign troops. One of the things I discovered while making The Network is it’s difficult to make a positive film about Afghanistan. While the achievements of Tolo are extraordinary as is the massive, unprecedented social change media has brought to the country […]
by Eva Orner on Aug 12, 2013When President Obama announced in the State of the Union that the war in Afghanistan would effectively end by 2014, the news was greeted with little more than a collective shrug. That thing was still going on? But what is very far away for most Americans is very close for all Afghans, a fact made clear in the SXSW-premiering documentary, The Network. The feature directorial debut of the Academy Award-winning producer Eva Orner, The Network tells the story of TOLO TV, Afghanistan’s first independent television network. Granted complete access by Saad Mohseni, the founder of the network (dubbed the “Rupert […]
by Mary Anderson Casavant on Mar 10, 2013