Winner
Best Short Documentary
What happens when you can no longer practice the profession that is part of your identity? You Can’t Stop the Music is a portrait of today’s Afghanistan, where life in the shadow of the Taliban can at times seem surreal.
Akbar Adeli was a music student at Kabul University when the Taliban took over Afghanistan. For conservative Afghans, music had been suspect even before, but under the Taliban, it became a gamble with one’s life – especially so because Akbar plays Western pop music.