Afghanistan is more than wars and this is shown with a gripping new documentary ‘Beyond the Border’. The documentary is on the skiing culture of Afghanistan by the independent filmmaker from Kashmir Naseer Khanday. It will be screened at the Fort Lauderdale film festival in November. The documentary received rave reviews when it premiered at the Venice film festival in September this year.

‘Beyond the Border’ is Naseer’s second documentary film based on a story from a ‘conflict zone’. His award-winning debut film ‘Iron Khan’ showed the journey through 7 years of a man’s life, his coming of age during the peak of militancy in Kashmir, and his struggle for survival in the face of violence.

Beyond the Border captures Bamiyan—Afghanistan’s skiing hub—that sits opposite the cliffs where sixth-century statues were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. Yet local athletes continue to pursue their passion, making their own gear out of wooden planks, metal, plastic, and rope. Dave and Mitch, two snowboarders from Canada visit Afghanistan to distribute snowboarding gear which they imported and ride the mighty Hindu-Kush Mountain range. They aim to give local youth as many snowboards as possible with the hope to distract them from the state of desolation in which they live.

Naseer further shares an interesting anecdote on how Afghanistan holds a special place in European skiing’s lexicon. “European aficionados of Alpine skiing often refer to a downhill race as a “Kandahar.” The name derives from a British general, Frederick Sleigh Roberts, who won a major victory at Kandahar in 1880 and was subsequently knighted. He chose for himself the title “Lord Roberts of Kandahar”. Later, he was involved with organizing the first-ever downhill ski race in Europe (in 1911), which was called “The Roberts of Kandahar Challenge.”

Co-producer of both Beyond the Border and Iron Khan is Suril Desai, an international lawyer at Nishith Desai Associate and an expert on blockchain & cryptocurrency practice. Suril was instrumental in generating crypto funding to partially finance the production of Beyond the Border. According to him, cryptocurrency is a great boon especially for documentary filmmakers that film in conflict zones as they no longer have to worry about converting and carrying cash to meet their production costs.