Parity Pipeline

Genre

Synopsis

This UNTITLED feature documentary tells a dramatic story about Afghanistan’s history, through the lens of my father and grandfather’s epic life stories. The film uses the framework of a murder mystery as a metaphor for the larger sense of confusion and mystery we all feel in the face of death and loss, especially death on a global scale, like through war. The story starts in present-day San Francisco. While he’s hard at work writing a mystery novel, my father, Afghan-American author Tamim Ansary, begins looking into some mysterious real-life circumstances surrounding his dad’s death. His investigation takes us back in time, to a story that spans five decades and two continents: from the glittering optimism of 1960’s Afghanistan, to the high-stakes politics of the Afghan royal court, to the Soviet invasion, to post-9/11 Kabul. My grandfather and father’s personal stories are intimately entwined with this gripping historical narrative, which ultimately sheds light on the war that shaped American politics for the past quarter century. The story is told through stunning home video archival footage my father filmed in Afghanistan in 2002; ethereal painted animations depicting the past, and a murder-mystery investigation that plays out in present-day footage.