Hollywoodgate Review: Chilling Glimpse of Taliban’s Kabul Takeover

“If his intentions are bad, he will die soon.” Taliban commander Mawlawi Mansour smiles and glances at the camera as he speaks, the menace in his words not disguised by an affable show of teeth. He is talking about the director of this fascinating, chilling film – Egyptian-born Ibrahim Nash’at, who scored the documentarian’s golden ticket when he gained access to the Taliban’s inner circle in the immediate aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

The access comes with caveats: Nash’at is not permitted to film civilians, or indeed much outside the former US base, nicknamed Hollywoodgate. Even so, and at considerable risk, one suspects, to his personal safety, the director captures something of the plight of the ordinary people of Kabul, a distant afterthought for these war-obsessed men consumed by the thrill of new toys – the US left weapons and equipment behind worth an estimated $7bn – and the threat of old enemies.

• In UK and Irish cinemas/on Curzon Home Cinema