Mediawan Rights has acquired world sales rights to Aboozar Amini\u2019s documentary \u201cKabul, Between Prayers,\u201d ahead of its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in the Out of Competition section. Variety debuts the first clip from the film here.<\/p>\n
The deal with Amini and Jia Zhao\u2019s production company Silk Road Film Salon excludes Netherlands and Belgium. The film is co-produced by Hanne Phlypo at Clin d\u2019Oeil Films in Belgium.<\/p>\n
More from Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n The documentary centers on Samim, 23, a devoted soldier of the Taliban\u2019s ideology that has shaped his destiny since birth, who struggles between the alluring promises of martyrdom and the mundanity of his daily existence as a husband and farmer. Samim\u2019s younger brother, Rafi, 14, idolizes his big brother as he navigates the confusion of adolescence, preparing to leave playfulness behind and enter a world shaped by decades of military intervention and resulting radicalization.<\/p>\n Amini said, \u201cAs an artist, my foremost inclination is to transcend the impulse to condemn instead creating a space where observation can delve deeper than what populist politicians dictate. \u2018Kabul, Between Prayers\u2019 does not merely depict another faceless Taliban soldier, instead, it strives to engage with him as a human being\u2014shaped by, and reflective of, four decades of international military intervention and resulting radicalization in Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n Zhao said, \u201cAboozar follows a path of solitary courage and employs an unconventional approach to storytelling, as he seeks to come as close as possible to an individual shaped by war and ideology. I find \u2018Kabul, Between Prayers\u2019 to be poetic yet urgent; both an alarm and a chant that challenges viewers to confront the blurred lines between fanaticism and humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n Arianna Castoldi and Kilian Kiefel of Mediawan Rights said, \u201cAboozar Amini\u2019s filmmaking has a rare sensitivity: He observes rather than explains, allowing us to step into the everyday life of Kabul without filters or judgment. His approach is intimate, poetic, and political all at once \u2013 this complexity struck a deep chord with us. \u2018Kabul, Between Prayers\u2019 speaks to something essential about fragility, resistance, and what it means to hold on to one\u2019s humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n Phlypo said that Amini\u2019s \u201csubtle cinematic language has completely captivated us.\u201d Phlypo added, \u201cIt is his commitment to the individual first in \u2018Kabul, Between Prayers\u2019 that caught our attention. At its heart, this is the story of a man who could be our brother, our uncle \u2013 someone we know or see every day. Aboozar brings an intimate perspective that feels both deeply personal and universally human, even now as he lives in exile in the Netherlands.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cKabul, Between Prayers\u201d follows Amini\u2019s debut \u201cKabul, City in the Wind,\u201d which opened IDFA in 2018, and won the festival\u2019s special jury prize for first appearance, as well as best film in the Next: Wave section at CPH:DOX.<\/p>\n Best of Variety<\/strong><\/p>\n Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source uk.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mediawan Rights has acquired world sales rights to Aboozar Amini\u2019s documentary \u201cKabul, Between Prayers,\u201d ahead of its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival in the Out of Competition section. Variety debuts the first clip from the film here. The deal with Amini and Jia Zhao\u2019s production company Silk Road Film Salon excludes Netherlands and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1968562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[349280,349276,349277,349279,349278,333428,312645],"class_list":["post-1968561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-aboozar-amini","tag-hanne-phlypo","tag-kabul","tag-mediawan-rights","tag-prayers","tag-venice-film-festival","tag-world-premiere"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Venice-Bound-\u2018Kabul-Between-Prayers-Acquired-for-Sales-by-Mediawan-First-Look.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1968561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1968561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1968561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1968562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1968561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1968561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1968561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}