TIFF17 REVIEW: Black Kite [2017]

“For a drop of water I’ll tell you my whole story” With the world caught in a time and place allowing it to quickly judge so much on so little, tiny human stories like Black Kite prove to be their most potent. Ask Americans about the Taliban and some will probably say the term is synonymous with ISIS, their lazy round-up of terrorist labels from the Middle East ultimately falling under the unfortunate umbrella of Islam at-large. It’s a real shame because this means that too many of us don’t…

Read More

REVIEW: Buzkashi Boys [2012]

“Cheer for these champions” From crumbling bombed-out architectural shells, the black soot-covered faces of the public, and a national sport as rough and grotesque as Buzkashi’s horse polo with a dead goat, life in Afghanistan is quite easily one of the hardest, most brutal lives one can imagine. We sit here in America and let the media paint the entire country as our enemy—poverty stricken heathens who should be overjoyed by our intrusion upon them to instill some semblance of Westernization—and as a result never get to see how intrinsically…

Read More