Synopsis

“Voice of the Moon” is a UNICEF-funded half-hour poetic depiction of Afghanistan, narrated through a poem, during the late 1980s, after the war with the Soviet Union and before the Taliban came to power.

Related Event

Director Richard Stanley & Immo Horn will be present for a discussion following the screening.

Richard Stanley: lecture - 22 Feb // 10am // Edinburgh College of Art - Richard Stanley will present a talk about his work in Afghanistan and his diverse film career.

Full Description

This short poetic take on Afghanistan in the late eighties was made by the young Richard Stanley before he went on to make Hardware and Dust Devil and the debacle from which he was removed, The Island of Dr Moreau. It is perhaps his best work, as he captures numerous images unusual not because of the way Stanley shoots them, but because he seems to have the patience to hang around in Afghanistan long enough to comprehend the texture and complexity of a country that is much more than a metonym for war. In fact in one amusing scene he shows the advantages of weaponry, as the fish are blasted out of the water by explosives. In another moment he shows the opposite: old fashioned canons that look as if they’re almost as dangerous to the users as to the victims.

With a varied score by Simon Boswell Stanley gives us a film that gives us poetry instead of prose, images instead of facts, and does much to dilute the drip, drip effect of Afghanistan as no more than a war zone in the eyes of people outside of it.

Director Profile

Cult-Director Richard Stanley is the award-winning South African-born film-maker, who made a name of himself with his first feature film, the science fiction movie “Hardware”. This was followed in 1992, with Dust Devil, a story based on the myth of a Namibian serial killer.

However before either of these films Stanley accompanied UNICEF to Afghanistan. He absconded from this mission and filmed with the Mujahideen he encountered there. Voice of the Moon is the result of this work.

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