Mariam Ghani

According to the official history of Afghanistan, ruthless destruction has always prevailed over art and creation; but there is another tale to be told, the forgotten account of a diverse and progressive country, seen through the lens of innovative filmmakers, a story that survives thanks to a few brave Afghans, a small but very passionate group that secretly fought to save a huge film archive that was constantly menaced by war and religious fanaticism.

About five never completed films made between 1978 and 1992 before the backdrop of the various communist regimes that came to power in Afghanistan. Scenes from these films, some of which later reused in other works, are edited together with current footage of their locations and commentaries by the filmmakers and actors involved in the productions, allowing us to dive into action films and romantic dramas that revolve around local histories and conflicts.

DIS-EASE is a feature-length documentary about how we imagine disease, and how that affects what we do when we encounter illness, outbreaks, doctors, treatments, and disability in real life. It dives deep into the weird, wild archives of medical imaging, public health messaging, and pop-culture outbreak narratives to understand how ideas have moved between science, science fiction, and political ideology over the past century. (Yes, this is a film that covers both antibiotic resistance and the persistence of zombie apocalypse films.) Ultimately, DIS-EASE is a provocation to re-think how we define both the "public" and "health" in public health - who is included, what counts as care, and what it means to be sick or well in a world perpetually on the brink of collapse.

It’s a Disaster! literalizes the overlaps between pop-cultural imaginaries of contagion, alien invasion, and climate disasters. Part of a larger body of research, which includes a feature in progress, examining our long metaphorical “war on disease” and its real-world consequences. Originally produced for an overlapping three-screen projection system at the Tentacular Festival at Matadero Madrid.

A kaleidoscopic trip through the intertwined histories of pandemics, riots, and colonial violence. An archive constantly haunted by its possible collapse. Featuring the voices of science journalist Sonia Shah, poet and literary scholar Anjuli Raza Kolb, medical anthropologist Christos Lynteris, epidemiologist Keiji Fukuda, economist William A. Darity Jr., and historians Nayan Shah, Kellie Carter Jackson, and Nancy Tomes.

Adapted from the novel Bid Me To Live by the poet H.D. (written 1933–50, published 1960) and shot in houses occupied by military families on Governors Island, NYC, from the 1770s to the 1960s, To Live is about what happens on the fringes of a war, and the extremes and estrangements that war produces—how dancing on “the last-straw edge of everything” makes us strangers not only to each other but also to ourselves. It is propelled by a text that spirals through a perpetual state of siege, suspension and postponement, marking the inroads that the state makes on our ability to love and to live.

Adapted from the spiritual journals of the Shaker Village at Pleasant Hill, Kentucky, 1847–1857, a period during which the Pleasant Hill meeting house hosted one of the longest Shaker meetings ever recorded, 19 hours in duration.

Short piece consisting of the spliced together leader of unfinished Afghani films.