Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi on AllMovie

In 2006, documentary filmmaker Ian Olds (Operation: Dreamland) spent time in Afghanistan with journalist Christian Parenti and his "fixer," Ajmal Naqshbandi. Olds interviewed Naqshbandi extensively, trying to develop an understanding of the relationship between Western journalist and their Afghan guides/translators, as part of the larger subject of the war in Afghanistan. Olds discovered a fragmented society in which corruption was so rampant, that some otherwise rational Afghans, Naqshbandi included, began to wonder whether or not they might be better off under the iron fist of the Taliban. Six months later, Naqshbandi was kidnapped by the Taliban, along with the Italian journalist for whom he was working. As Olds follows the story of the kidnapping and the negotiations for the release of the hostages, he exposes ineptitude and hypocrisy among government officials, and a widespread (and justifiable) observation among Afghanis (including the friends and family of Naqshbandi that their lives do not seem to be worth as much to their own government as those of the Westerners among them. Fixer: The Taking of Ajmal Naqshbandi had its North American premiere at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, in the World Documentary Competition, where Olds won the Best New Documentary Filmmaker Award.