One of our favorite films coming out of Venice Film Festival last fall is finally getting a release this month. Director Ibrahim Nash’at spent a year closely embedded in the inner circle of the Taliban after the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, as they took back power and picked up the many (expensive) pieces our government left behind. The result is a fascinating, often wild, and even occasionally humorous look at shifting power. Ahead of a theatrical release beginning next week on July 19, the first trailer has now arrived.
Here’s the synopsis: “Unprecedented and audacious, HOLLYWOODGATE is the riveting result of the year director Ibrahim Nash’at spent with the Taliban in the wake of the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Risking his life in the war-torn nation, Nash’at is on the ground with the Taliban when they enter an American base loaded with a portion of the roughly $7 billion worth of U.S. armaments left behind. Driving towards an astonishing and chilling end, Nash’at tracks Taliban leaders as they attempt to transform from a fundamentalist militia into a modern military regime, employing Hollywood-style propaganda to achieve their goals.”
Rory O’Connor said in his Venice review, “If you witnessed the chaos unfold in Kabul airport two years ago, it probably won’t come as much of a surprised to learn the US Army left a helicopter or two in Afghanistan. More alarming might be the news, calmly delivered at the start of this profoundly unreassuring documentary, that the cache of weapons and equipment that remains is estimated to be worth somewhere in the region of $7,000,000,000. In Hollywoodgate, an out-of-competition premiere at the Venice Film Festival this week, the Egyptian journalist and filmmaker Ibrahim Nash’at risks life and limb to achieve the improbable: nestling his way in with the Taliban fighters in charge of an abandoned U.S. base and observing their attempts to utilize what the Army left behind. ‘The Americans left us an enormous treasure,’ one General observes; Nash’at’s film offers a worrying insight into what they might decide to do with it all.”
See the trailer below.
