Lost Treasures of Afghanistan (National Geographic Documentary) (5)

Documentary World

Watch Lost Treasures of Afghanistan (National Geographic Documentary) (5) - Documentary World on Dailymotion

Transcript

00:00Well, it is said that the image of the Buddha was influenced by the image of Apollo.

00:08Look here. The nose is an extension of the forehead, which is typical of the Greek profile.

00:15The wide-open eyes and the very natural mouth are also part of the Greek conception.

00:21These remarkable busts may be all the treasure Dr. Tarzi discovers this year.

00:34He's mere days away from the end of the digging season, and still no sleeping Buddha.

00:42And now it's time for his daughter Nadia to return to her home in the United States.

00:47I don't think my father will be discouraged if he doesn't find the Buddha this year.

00:54I'm not disappointed. I'm patient.

00:59You have to look at this as if you were from the outside, because otherwise you will burn out.

01:05The archaeologist is resigned.

01:10Then something amazing happens.

01:13Let's go look at the surprise, the big discovery.

01:20We found two meters of painted clay laid out horizontally.

01:28It's part of something of considerable size.

01:33You see, I had been thinking about going back to France and finishing the report on this year's dig.

01:43But this changes everything.

01:47What Dr. Tarzi has found may be the foot of the sleeping Buddha of Bameyan.

01:53This large piece is bothersome because it corresponds with what we are looking for.

02:00It's not really bothersome. It's wonderful.

02:04But the fact that we are finding it at the end of this year's excavations is bothersome.

02:10Significantly, the supposed foot is right where it should be, near the monastery's western side.

02:18By tradition, sleeping Buddhas are aligned with their feet pointed west and their heads east.

02:27The architecture Dr. Tarzi has uncovered fits what would be required to support a massive object oriented this way.

02:36A Buddha, on the edge of Nirvana, embodied in a form 1,000 feet long.

02:55Working quickly, Tarzi and his team expose paint adorning the mysterious mound.

03:00A chemical solution heightens the colors.

03:07But now the archaeologist is on the brink of a painful decision.

03:12Should he continue excavating the supposed foot or cover it and resume his search next year?

03:19Some of Afghanistan's cultural warriors don't have to wait to savor the fruits of their devotion.

03:34At Afghan Films, the National Film Archive, a cast of heroes takes in a show of treasures once thought lost.

03:42When the cultural legacy of Afghanistan came under attack, its vast archive of historic films became even more important.

03:54That's because many Afghan treasures now exist solely as images captured on celluloid.

04:00Yet the Taliban set out to destroy even this, the archive of Afghan films.

04:11What they didn't anticipate was that the archive staff was willing to die to stop them.

04:18We were very upset when the minister of the Taliban brought the order to burn the films.

04:29We felt our hearts pounding. We became emotional.

04:34Here, they burned the films here. We have the evidence.

04:43They burned them in front of me.

04:47That day, it was like a dearest friend is being killed in front of you.

04:53That day was the darkest and hardest day for us.

04:56You plant a tree to collect its fruit. We worked for our people to have the archive. And they burned it.

05:07I became irrational. I decided to throw myself and the minister of information and culture into the fire with the films.

05:17At that moment, one of my colleagues grabbed me and stopped me.

05:28But the Taliban didn't know that the staff had handed over film prints, which can be replaced, and not negatives, which cannot.

05:37When the prints ran out, the filmmakers knew the negative archive would go into the flames.

05:50We all had the same idea, that we had to preserve the archive of Afghan film at any price, even by paying with our lives.

06:01But how to hide the main archive, some 2,900 rolls of irreplaceable negatives?

06:12Their plan was simple.

06:15Come on. Come on.

06:21They hid the archive by hiding the room.

06:25In order for no one to notice the door, we installed wallboard from here, to the ceiling, to here.

06:41With the help of an electrician, we also disabled the lighting system, so that the wall was darkened.

06:48Dozens of times, religious police walked past the fake wall, never suspecting the room beyond.

06:57The rescuers' lives were safe, as long as the ruse held.

07:05The Taliban told us that even if a small piece of film was found, we will hang you, or shoot you, in the ditch where the archive was burned.

07:14The Taliban minister said, if we find another film here, we will burn it along with you.

07:30Month after month, the staff sweated through surprise inspections, and the Taliban's insatiable demand for films to burn.

07:37Their countrymen assumed the archive was lost.

07:42But when at last the Taliban fell, the archive's rescuers brought the negatives out of hiding.

07:52Hailed as heroes, they shrugged off the acclaim.

07:56But they saved their Taliban-era IDs as mementos of a time when they would have given their lives for the art they love.

08:04Even if we lost our heads, it would have been an honor and privilege.

08:11But we didn't allow our heritage to be destroyed.

08:15Why?

08:17A country which has no culture has no history.

08:20Now, Afghan history is in the making at the Presidential Palace.

08:39After examining several gold objects, Victor Sarianidi has no doubt.

08:44This is the treasure he excavated in 1978.

08:49But is the gold all here?

08:54The only way to know is to open all six safes and catalogue their contents.

08:59They have just seen a fraction of the collection.

09:07What's their count? It's 100, 100, 142.

09:10But all...

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended