Synopsis

WHAT WE LEFT UNFINISHED tells the story of five unfinished fiction feature films from the Communist era in Afghanistan (1978-1991), and the people who went to crazy lengths to make them, in a time when films were weapons, filmmakers became targets, and the dreams of constantly shifting political regimes merged with the stories told onscreen. This tight-knit group of Afghan filmmakers loved cinema enough to risk their lives for art. Despite government interference, censorship boards, scarce resources, armed opposition, and near-constant threats of arrest or even death, they made films that were subversive and, in the filmmakers' opinions, always "true" to life. All five films - THE APRIL REVOLUTION, DOWNFALL, THE BLACK DIAMOND, WRONG WAY, and AGENT - completed principal photography before being canceled by the state or abandoned by the filmmakers. WHAT WE LEFT UNFINISHED brings together newly rediscovered and restored footage from these unfinished films with new footage shot in the same locations, and stories from behind the scenes, as told by the directors, actors and crew who worked on the films. Archival fictions, present-day recollections, and both imagined and real visions of Afghanistan slip and slide into each other in a film that reminds us that nations are inventions, and films can reinvent them.