Kabul Transit

• Event Date: Tuesday, March 3, 2009
• Time: 7:00 pm (CST)
• Location: Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL
• Cost: Free Admission

• Film

(David Edwards, Maliha Zulfacar, Gregory Whitmore, 2007, 84 minutes)

Kabul Transit employs a street-level democracy to explore the fractured cityscape of contemporary Kabul, Afghanistan. Moving through the city, the viewer encounters a variety of public and private spaces, from a kite-flying spot on a hilltop to a bureaucrat’s office, and meets diverse individuals, from a black-market entrepreneur to a jaded policeman to a commander of U.N. troops stationed in the city. This revealing look into the desperate yet utterly human life of Kabul raises as many questions as it answers about what it’s like to live in a place that has seen more war than peace for more than a generation. Note: Discussion with special guest TBA. Nazif Shahrani (Indiana University) reviews “Kabul Transit” in AEMS News and Reviews (Fall 2008).

This series of public film screenings and lecture/discussion programs is organized by the Asian Educational Media Service (AEMS) at the Center for East Asian & Pacific Studies. It is planned in collaboration with the Spurlock Museum and presented in the Knight Auditorium. Among the films offered for discussion this year, several were chosen with the exhibit “Children Just Like Me” in mind because of the meaningful and often dramatic ways in which they focus on youth and childhood experiences. Guest scholars and members of the campus and C-U communities will introduce the films and lead post-screening audience discussions.