Tribeca film focuses on beheaded Afghan "fixer"

[Coventina]

Source: Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - When the coffin of Afghan journalist and "fixer" Ajmal Naqshbandi was carried through the streets of Kabul in 2007, locals wailed that the world didn't care.

A documentary "Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi," showing at the Tribeca film festival this week, examines the life of Naqshbandi as one of Afghanistan's best "fixers" -- the local people who translate and arrange interviews for foreign journalists. And it questions how the world values an Afghan's life compared to a Westerner's.

"For many Afghans the case of Ajmal proved what they suspected -- that the international community didn't care about Afghanistan, they cared about their own and the life of an Afghan is worth less than that of a foreigner," film director Ian Olds said.

Olds, a 34-year-old American, decided to make the film after seeing the importance of fixers in Iraq, where he shot his previous film, "Occupation: Dreamland" that took an in-depth look at a squad of U.S. soldiers.



Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilNews/idUKTRE53P17V20090426

[No Elephants]

1. Good on this filmmaker, but everyone knows we care only about our own casualties. We never counted

any Iraqi casualties, even though we had basically knocked out Iraqi's government. As a result, no one will ever know how many Iraqis died or were wounded.

[ProgressIn2008]

2. Olds is right. We wouldn't have the policies we do if we cared about the lives of Afghans.

They're dispensable to the empire.