![]() That’s why we didn’t get access to start with. talked about the lack of focus or clear directions and everything they had to witness because of it, but of course, the administration has control over the Department of Defense and the military. Some of their stories seem like an indictment on the Biden administration’s handling of the evacuation. ![]() They were frustrated that they hadn’t seen their story represented, that they hadn’t been heard.” “I think there was a groundswell within the Marines. And it felt like, OK, all of a sudden we’re right in the inside of the story. And the first guy who came in is Chris Richardella, who is in the film and basically sits down and gives you a start-to-finish of when they deployed two days before the Taliban arrived, and then what happened when the Taliban got there, and what happened afterwards. Over time, we managed to open that up, and when we turned up on the base, we were kind of amazed. So I think the Marines as an organization decided maybe they would let their people speak on this. They were frustrated that they hadn’t seen their story represented, that they hadn’t been heard. And I think there was a groundswell within the Marines. We tried different ways and we spoke to Marines who have since left, and then we started rounds of talks with an intermediary that we met. With the Marines, on our first approach, we were rebuffed. Did you go through official channels to get them? would want to keep that closer to the vest, since it was, in so many peoples’ opinions, a bungled evacuation. servicemen and servicewomen-I guess because I thought the U.S. To me, the most surprising “get” was the U.S. We really wanted people who had been down in the gates where the Marines were and the Talibs were, people who were in the frontlines in the canal where the bomb went off, to be able to keep the story very focused. Everyone is messaging, especially because they’re spread all over the world, on WhatsApp, on Facebook. We have Afghans working on the film, people I’d met and filmed with-they’re all on social networks. Speaking to charities, speaking to people involved in the evacuation, and going through networks. It was fascinating hearing from some of the evacuees who actually went through that nightmare, and seeing them side by side with uninterrupted footage of that horrible waiting period for weeks at the airport. With this, HBO wanted something within the year. Obviously if you’ve got longer, that’s great, but there’s some stories that feel like they are quite urgent. I’ve spent good amounts of time on films in the past where I’ve embedded for like a year with a group-a jihadi group, a far-right group-but I guess I like working at pace. It seems like with your past couple of documentaries, you’ve worked pretty quickly. ![]() The Daily Beast spoke with Roberts over Zoom about the making of the documentary, the Biden administration’s initial pushback, and the ripple effect of the disastrous evacuation for thousands of Afghans and their families. From January to March, they treaded carefully in Kabul, cautious not to provoke the Taliban’s ire. 31, reaching out to the British and American military and figuring out how to make it over to Afghanistan. Roberts and his team started plotting the film within days of the U.S.’s withdrawal on Aug. The plane is ordered to take off, and a single body falls and splatters on the runway. The crowds rush toward the aircraft, but the American troops overseeing the evacuation still don’t know who’s who in the melee. In another disturbing scene, a group of Afghan citizens, feeling like they have nothing to lose, hop on the wing of a massive C-17 military plane. Marine will take pity on them and pick them out for resettlement. We watch, for instance, as people stand in a flooded sewage canal in unbearable heat, hoping that a U.S. In a tight 77 minutes, Roberts merges hours of on-the-ground footage with stirring interviews from Afghan evacuees, American troops, and the Taliban for a compelling look into the human instinct to survive. Now, director Jamie Roberts and the team at Amos Pictures have turned those events into a documentary, Escape From Kabul, premiering Wednesday on HBO Max. The month of August 2021 was filled with minute-to-minute updates on the chaos: the desperate masses trying to escape, the rapid advance of the Taliban, the terrorist attack at the Kabul airport, and the thousands of migrants filing into planes and arriving at makeshift resettlement centers across the world. withdrawal from Afghanistan is still a blur.įor those of us watching from afar, the hasty airlifts looked more like the climax of a war movie than a coordinated military operation by the world’s only superpower.
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