Kandahar (2001 film)

Kandahar (Dari: قندهار, "Qandahar") is a 2001 Iranian film directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, set in Afghanistan during the rule of the Taliban. Its original Afghan title is Safar-e Ghandehar (سفر قندهار), which means "Journey to Kandahar", and it is alternatively known as The Sun Behind the Moon. The film is based on a partly true, partly fictionalized story of Nafas, a successful Afghan-Canadian woman played by Nelofer Pazira.

The film recounts the attempts of Nafas to return to Afghanistan after receiving a letter from her sister, who was left behind when the family escaped from the country years earlier after the rise of the Taliban. Nafas makes this desperate mission in an effort to rescue her sister, who has written that, because of discriminatory laws passed by the regime, she plans to commit suicide on the last solar eclipse of the millennium.

Kandahar was filmed mostly in Iran, including at the Niatak refugee campclose to the Afghan border. Some filming took place secretly in Afghanistan. Most people, including Nelofer Pazira, played themselves.