Film on Beheaded Afghan "Fixer" to Be Shown at Tribeca Film Festival

Ajmal Naqshbandi, an Afghan "fixer," was kidnapped along with Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo and Afghan driver Sayed Agha on the remote and dangerous Helmand province in early 2007. Naqshbandi was beheaded, his coffin carried through the streets of Kabul, locals crying out that the world didn't care about the death of Afghan journalists like they do about Americans.

A "fixer" is a local resident who arranges and translates interviews for foreign journalists. While American film director Ian Olds shot his previous film, Occupation: Dreamland, he realized how important Afghan fixers and journalists were to war coverage. After debating with the idea of making a film about Naqshbandi and his death, Olds decided it was the best thing he could do to honor the lost journalist, Reuters reported.

"It seemed tragic and very distasteful to me to use a friend of mine's death as a dramatic device," Olds said. "But then the more I thought about Ajmal, the more it felt like an obligation.

Olds's film, which will be screened at the Tribeca Film Festival, shows partial footage of Naqshbandi's beheading and aims to expose the disparities between how Afghan and American journalists are treated. "The film is not about the journalists that you often see, but is about this off-screen presence and voice, the unseen person that facilitates the journalist," said Olds.