Winner of the Panorama Audience Award in Berlin, Tell Spring Not to Come This Year takes us into the dark heart of the forgotten ‘War on Terror’ as Afghani forces struggle to fight on after foreign forces have evacuated.
Immersive and at times upsetting, yet vital… Farouky and McEvoy have gone where few directors dare to venture.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2015
Tell Spring Not to Come This Year 2015
NATO troops have evacuated and the last remaining American forces are soon to follow, but the war in Afghanistan continues unabated. Filmmakers Saeed Taji Farouky and Michael McEvoy embedded themselves in an Afghan National Army battalion dealing with the chaos left behind, and came back with this intense and moving documentary portrait of soldiers fighting a forgotten war. The film accompanies the soldiers over the course of a year battling insurgents in the province of Helmand. The battalion is a mix of hardened veterans and new recruits desperate for a steady income. They venture from their base to track down suspected Taliban and stake out opium crops. At one point they scavenge an abandoned NATO base for supplies but even the wiring has been stripped away, while another routine operation suddenly erupts into a deadly firefight sending soldiers (and cameraman) scurrying for their lives. — MM
“This is an intimate film about the human side of combat, told from a previously unseen perspective, that represents the deep personal motivations, desires and struggles of a band of fighting men on the frontline of the ‘War on Terror’.” — Sheffield Doc/Fest