Kabul Express continues to gather accolades around the world

‘Kabul Express’ has been gathering praise from cineastes around the world as a stellar example of the new face of Hindi cinema. The film has been invited to and screened to great acclaim at some of the leading film festivals of the world, including the Toronto, London, Pusan and Casablanca Film Festivals. It is now the turn of the film’s director Kabir Khan to bask in the glory himself. He has been awarded as “Best Director” for ‘Kabul Express’ at the 3rd Asian Festival of 1st Films. 

Additionally, ‘Kabul Express’ was also awarded the Foreign Correspondents Association Purple Orchid Award, which is the critics’ choice award for “Best Film”, voted in by the media from 33 countries. 

The 3rd Asian Festival of 1st Films (AFFF) was held in Singapore from 27th November to 4th December 2007. An eminent selection committee comprising of Carol Haslam (UK), Gordon Chan (HK), Peggy Chiao (Taiwan) and Uma da Cunha (India) met in Singapore and viewed the eligible films over 6 days and nominated 11 features and 10 documentaries across nine award categories. An additional 4 features and 4 documentaries were selected in the non-competitive category. 

The only festival of its kind in the world, the AFFF celebrates the excellence of first-time producers, directors, writers, cinematographers, actors and documentary makers from the Asia Pacific diaspora, with the winning selections awarded by an international celebrity jury and selection committee. Past winning films have went on to be screened and won awards at the likes of Cannes, Sundance, Berlin and other noted Film Festivals around the world.

‘Kabul Express’ was released in India in December 2006 to wide critical acclaim. It details the story of a couple of Indian journalists who are forced into an incident filled road trip across the country by a Pakistani member of the Taliban. Accompanying them are an American photojournalist and their Afghan guide. As the road twists and turns, so does the story as the five diverse passengers of the jeep ‘Kabul Express’ understand their commonalities in a country beset by differences. The film stars Indian stars John Abraham and Arshad Warsi with American actress Linda Arsenio, Pakistani actor Salman Shahid and Afghan actor Hanif Hum Ghum filling out the main roles. The film was directed by Kabir Khan and was based on the director’s own experiences shooting documentary films in post Taliban Afghanistan.