Afghan Film, Afghanistan’s state-run film production company, now controlled by a Taliban grandee, screened two documentaries as “entertainment programs” - but without featuring any female actor and music, a stark reminder of the tectonic cultural and social changes the country has gone through when the Islamists seized power in August last year.

Shot in the last seven months, Salang and Company Bridge, the two documentaries, were screened to an audience that appears full of Taliban officials and fighters in Kabul this week, showcasing the Taliban's work in the country's reconstruction, reported TOLOnews.

Over the last 42 years of the conflict, Salang, a strategic pass located some 90 km north of the capital Kabul, connecting northern provinces in the Hindu Kush mountains, became an integral part of the conflict.

It is in the same pass where the forces of legendary Afghan guerrilla commander Ahmad Shah Massoud valiantly fought back the soldiers of the mighty Red Army. Salang, the documentary, showed how the pass is now being reconstructed by the Taliban regime.

Mawlawi Javid Afghan, the Taliban official who now heads Afghan Film, said they were working hard to produce more entertainment programs—a claim that appears odd, given the conservative cultural guidelines issued by the Taliban regime.

“We are trying to have entertainment programs to grab the attention of foreigners so they come to visit Afghanistan. Also, we want to show the people what has happened in the last decades in the country,” Mawlawi Javid was quoted as saying by TOLOnews.

Once an integral part of the media and film industry, women actors have vanished from the screen. Filmmakers now grapple with a reality imposed by the Taliban - making entertainment programs and films without music and women.

“If we want to produce a film or series, we cannot produce without women actors. You know that in society both men and women have roles,” Mohammad Azam Hamsafar, a producer and actor, was quoted as saying by TOLOnews.

Zabiullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s spokesperson and deputy minister for culture and information, asked filmmakers to make films as per the “demands” of audience and society. However, those films, if ever made in the true sense, are unlikely to pass the Taliban’s censorship test.

The country’s media landscape changed, almost as much as the country changed in itself after the Taliban stormed to power last year. Hundreds of journalists, filmmakers, and other talents in the industry took flights out of the country. Overnight, their jobs became all but impossible under the Taliban.

(SAM)