Official Trailer for Compelling Doc ‘Hollywoodgate’ About the Taliban

Official Trailer for Compelling Doc ‘Hollywoodgate’ About the Taliban

by Alex Billington
July 12, 2024
Source: YouTube

“Stop filming now, all of you.” Fourth Act Film has revealed an official trailer for an acclaimed documentary film called Hollywoodgate, a chilling look at this moment in Afghanistan’s history. This doc premiered at the 2023 Venice & Telluride Film Festivals last year to positive reviews, and also played at the Woodstock, Zurich, and Stockholm Film Festivals. Hollywoodgate, which has nothing to do with Hollywood anyway, is Egyptian director Ibrahim Nash’at’s unprecedented and audacious look at the Taliban’s transition from an insurgent militia into a military regime. Immediately after the US pullout from Afghanistan, Taliban forces occupied the Hollywood Gate complex, which is claimed to be a former CIA base in Kabul. Helicopters and fighter jets that were thought to be destroyed now lethally bomb the opposition, creating untold collateral damage in the process; and the use of international documentarians for the purposes of propaganda is now underway. Over the course of one year, this doc film exposes their transformation using these supplies and “employing Hollywood-style propaganda to achieve their goals.” Scary. A truly brave film about propaganda.

Here’s the official US trailer (+ poster) for Ibrahim Nash’at’s doc Hollywoodgate, direct from YouTube:

Unprecedented and audacious, Hollywoodgate is the riveting result of the year director Ibrahim Nash’at spent with the Taliban in the wake of the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. Risking his life in the war-torn nation, Nash’at is on the ground with the Taliban when they enter an American base loaded with much of the ~$7 billion worth of U.S. armaments left behind. Driving towards an astonishing & chilling end, Nash’at tracks Taliban leaders as they attempt to transform from a fundamentalist militia into a modern military regime, employing Hollywood-style propaganda to achieve their goals. The film Hollywoodgate is directed by acclaimed Egyptian filmmaker Ibrahim Nash’at, as his feature directorial debut after one other short film previously. It’s produced by Shane Boris, Talal Derki, and Odessa Rae. This initially premiered at the 2023 Venice and Telluride Film Festivals last year. Fourth Act Film will debut the Hollywoodgate doc in select US theaters starting July 19th, 2024 this summer. Anyone interested in this?

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