Hollywoodgate. 2023. Germany/USA. Directed by Ibrahim Nash’at. New York premiere. In Pashto, Dari, English; English subtitles. 92 min.
In August 2021, as the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan dominated headlines, Egyptian journalist Ibrahim Nash’at had his sights on what would happen next. Spending a year with unprecedented (if heavily controlled) access while embedded with the Taliban, he became a unique witness to the extremist militia’s return to power. Inside the Hollywoodgate compound, rumored to be a former CIA base, Nash’at shadowed members of the newly minted air force as they attempted to rehab billions of dollars of armaments left behind by the US. In a kind of sinister chamber drama, the inner workings of the Taliban’s regime of brutal repression plays out against a web of obsequious favor-currying, ambition, and revenge among individual commanders. As a work of observational cinema, Hollywoodgate treads an astonishing tightrope: between what the Taliban wants the world to see and what the filmmaker is able to capture, the plight of the Afghan people and the cost of the longest war in US history remain strongly felt.