Mohammed Hashim Didari

The Rhythm of My Land is a fast-paced sequence of images from present-day Kabul, a vivid collage capturing the prevailing mood in Afghanistan after the Taliban invaded the capital and President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on 15 August 2021, abandoning his people to the terrorist regime. It is a film about anxiety spreading from one person to the next, about despair over lost opportunities, about the moment you are robbed of your future. It shows people stranded in a black hole of history, gasping for air like a fish on dry land, writhing in agony like a snake held in the grip of a devil that has declared itself the master.

What happens when you can no longer practice the profession that is part of your identity? You Can’t Stop the Music is a portrait from today’s Afghanistan, where life in the shadow of the Taliban can at times seem surreal. When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, Akbar Adeli was a music student at Kabul University. For conservative Afghans, music had been suspect even before the Taliban takeover, but it soon became a gamble with one’s life – especially since Akbar plays Western pop music.

The Rhythm of My Land is a fast-paced sequence of images from present-day Kabul, a vivid collage capturing the prevailing mood in Afghanistan after the Taliban invaded the capital and President Ashraf Ghani fled the country on 15 August 2021, abandoning his people to the terrorist regime. It is a film about anxiety spreading from one person to the next, about despair over lost opportunities, about the moment you are robbed of your future. It shows people stranded in a black hole of history, gasping for air like a fish on dry land, writhing in agony like a snake held in the grip of a devil that has declared itself the master.

What happens when you can no longer practice the profession that is part of your identity? You Can’t Stop the Music is a portrait from today’s Afghanistan, where life in the shadow of the Taliban can at times seem surreal. When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, Akbar Adeli was a music student at Kabul University. For conservative Afghans, music had been suspect even before the Taliban takeover, but it soon became a gamble with one’s life – especially since Akbar plays Western pop music.

What happens when you can no longer practice the profession that is part of your identity? You Can’t Stop the Music is a portrait from today’s Afghanistan, where life in the shadow of the Taliban can at times seem surreal. When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, Akbar Adeli was a music student at Kabul University. For conservative Afghans, music had been suspect even before the Taliban takeover, but it soon became a gamble with one’s life – especially since Akbar plays Western pop music.