Filmmaker Aboozar Amini’s new documentary film #Kabul, Between Prayers# paints an intimate portrait of a young, devoted Taliban soldier, Samim (23), who struggles between the alluring promises of martyrdom borne of a zealous death, and the mundanity of his daily existence as a husband and farmer.

Samim’s younger brother Rafi (14) idolizes Samim and the Taliban’s ideology. Navigating the confusion and playfulness of adolescence, he experiences the first real pull of indoctrination: the seduction of ideology, and the erosion of identity, as he too heads down the inevitable path of Afghanistan’s new national identity.

Amini’s unique and intimate access blurs the boundaries between tenderness and dogma, playfulness and fanaticism, humanity and ideology.

“Kabul Between Prayers” had its World Premiere at the Venice Film Festival.