Saeed Taji Farouky

Saeed Taji Farouky 1    INT. OLD HAIFA VILLA - DAY Saeed, looking tired, sinks deeper into the familiar chair. His shoulders hang listlessly. SAEED Do you know what the homeland is, Safiyya? The homeland is where none of this can happen. SAFIYYA (distraught) What happened to you, Saeed? SAEED Nothing. Nothing at all. I was just asking. I’m looking for the true Palestine, the Palestine that’s more than memories... Memory is a burden, and painful. Memory is deceitful and falsely comforting.

A film by Saeed Taji Farouky Strange Cities Are Famil­iar will be view­able for a lim­it­ed time only. We rec­om­mend that you watch this short film full screen, and give your­self time to absorb its effect, before read­ing the direc­tor Q & A that follows.

The Afghan Army is now charged with leading an unfinished war against an ongoing insurgency. But how much do we know about the Afghan soldiers themselves? To get a sense of the war through their eyes, we spent a year with one of them, a captain named Jalaluddin. He heads a front-line company of Afghan soldiers in Helmand, the country’s most dangerous province.