The Takeover

Synopsis

Filmed in 2021 and 2022, as the Taliban retake control of Afghanistan, this film documents the country’s rapid transformation and the women who refuse to lose their rights. Starting as the US left Afghanistan, The Takeover is filmed over the first year the Taliban again ruled the country. Following women as the country changes to fit the Taliban's ideology, the film moves through the women's experience, protests and daily life in the cities and countryside, and we see how restrictions on women’s basic freedoms are enforced. Director Anders Hammer returns to his former home of Afghanistan, a country he has spent a large part of the last 15 years working in and documenting, to give voice to women's experience in a new Afghanistan.

Director Biography

The director Anders Hammer has earlier lived in Afghanistan for six years, and written four books about the country in addition to making a number of documentaries from the ground there. Hammer filmed and directed the documentary “Do Not Split” which takes us within the heart of the Hong Kong protests. The movie premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2020 and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Short Documentary in 2021.