Shot by Bahareh Hosseini, the film gets right up close to men, women and children as they smoke, inject and eat the drug, and Hosseini’s camera doesn’t flinch when these addicts run out of opium and reveal their desperation. While opium addiction in poppy-filled Afghanistan is not new news, current statistics are staggering. A United Nations report assessed that the amount of Afghan land used for opium is now larger than the corresponding total for coca cultivation in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia combined.

Gordon, a British director, interviews mothers in northern villages who use the drug to calm their crying, hungry babies. She also spends time with long-term addicts in Kabul who seek help from a poorly funded clinic there. One man, who suffered a face-altering gun-shot wound while working as a presidential security guard, started smoking opium when someone in the hospital room with him said it would take his pain away and help him sleep.

The full blog post, on Lucy Gordon’s documentary film, “This is My Destiny,” is at INTELLIGENT LIFE

The rationale behind an upcoming Afghanistan film festival in London came about during a trip to Afghanistan in November of 2006. Zahra Qadir and her friend Dan Gorman were there working on a short film called “Circus for Life,” about a therapeutic circus for children in Kabul.

While making their documentary, the two filmmakers noticed that Afghans liked talking with them about movies. Images of the outside world – of other people’s ideas and ways of life – were exciting.

The full blog post, on London’s Afghanistan Film Festival, is at the NEW YORK TIMES