Behind Enemy Lines
Shot in Afghanistan, October-November 2009
Clover Films for Channel 4 - Dispatches

Najibullah Quraishi’s film documents the two weeks he spent with Hezb-i-Islami, Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters in the troubled Kunduz and Baghlan provinces in Afghanistan.

Witnessing dramatic attacks on NATO supply routes, Najibullah also captures the day-to-day lives of the insurgents - complaints of boredom, the cold, and arguments with their commanders.

Eventually however, a commander becomes suspicious of Najibullah's motives and asks him if he would take up arms against the Kufaar (non-believers). He replies: "My camera is my gun". Soon after, when a vote is proposed to behead Najibullah, he is forced to flee the camp.

The judges praised the journalistic integrity of Najibullah's film, which they described as a "warts and all" picture of the insurgents. One said: "He had amazingly open access to these men - we see them fighting, making bombs, making mistakes - all the while appearing quite natural. They obviously had a level of trust in him. "

Biography
Najibullah Quraishi is an Afghan-born freelance reporter, cameraman and field producer. He has 10 years experience with Afghan National Television where he worked as a producer, reporter and presenter.

In 2002, after successfully collaborating on the film ‘Afghan Massacre: Convoy of Death’, Najibullah moved to the UK, and in the same year won a Rory Peck Award for a film about the SAS in Afghanistan. His most recent works include ‘The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan’, and a series of films for WNET/Wide Angle.

www.clover-films.com

Watch the whole of Behind Enemy Lines on Channel 4 OnDemand.

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