Three stories told simultaneously in ninety minutes of real time: a Republican Senator who's a presidential hopeful gives an hour-long interview to a skeptical television reporter, detailing a strategy for victory in Afghanistan; two special forces ambushed on an Afghani ridge await rescue as Taliban forces close in; a poli-sci professor at a California college invites a student to re-engage.
A Danish officer, Michael, is sent away to the International Security Assistance Force operation in Afghanistan for three months. His first mission there is to find a young radar technician who had been separated from his squad some days earlier. While on the search, his helicopter is shot down and he is taken as a prisoner of war, but is reported dead to the family.
Elderly Dastaguir and his newly deaf 5-year-old grandson Yassin hitchhike and walk, but mostly walk, as they make their way to the coal mine where Dastaguir's son Murad works. Dastaguir must tell Murad that the rest of their family were all killed in a recent bomb attack.
After spending years in California, Amir returns to his homeland in Afghanistan to help his old friend Hassan, whose son is in trouble.
A Russian guitarist was enlisted in 1984 in the Afghan war. Imprisoned, he will meet an Afghan musician and a French journalist.
A pious old man, who is a proponent of suicide attackers, comes to Kabul to visit his only son, who, after the holy war had remained in the Soviet Union. He had enrolled his son in a religious school "to study the Koran and return to the village as a Mullah". In Kabul he learns that his son had decided to become a divine suicide bomber so as to go to Heaven. The film presents two different forces of the inner world of the protagonist father: paternal feelings and the holy religious ideology. The spectator witnesses how he loses his only son and holy belief. Shot in chaotic and dirty Kabul, the film portrays the incorrect interpretation of religion and the conflict of generations.
Combat has taken its toll on Rambo, but he's finally begun to find inner peace in a monastery. When Rambo's friend and mentor Col. Trautman asks for his help on a top secret mission to Afghanistan, Rambo declines but must reconsider when Trautman is captured.
Goli is an Afghan girl whose father has quit the Taliban group because he disagreed with their aggressive tactics. In retaliation, the Taliban kill her father and mother. Now, they are looking for Goli to kill her too. She escapes to Iran. In Iran, she is introduced to a group that helps girls to immigrate to other countries. She hopes to go to another country and start a new life there. In this journey, she faces many ups and downs and challenges.
During the Russian war with Afghanistan in the 1980s, journalist Charlie Palmer and medic Victor Davis arrive at a P.O.W. camp near the Afghanistan/Pakistan border in order to document the sub-human conditions which the prisoners are forced to endure. During their visit, the prisoners seize control of the camp and begin to enact a series of terrible and bloody punishments on their captors. Held as hostages, Palmer and Davis are forced to witness acts of barbarity unlike any they have ever seen before.
Jason Gedrick and a small group of Marines are stranded in the remote Afghan desert. But it ain't the Taliban that's worrying them, it's these giant refugees from Tremors. In fact the big worms prove to be an ally of sorts by doing better against the Taliban than themselves but battling these enemies is something not covered in their training.
Djomeh is a young Afghan man who has come to live in Iran because of family trouble. Working as a milk boy, he encounters discrimination from the Iranian villagers and disdain from Habib, a fellow Afghani to whose trust Djomeh was given. The only person who shows any friendliness to him is his employer, who Djomeh asks to intercede for him in asking a woman from the village for her hand in marriage.
Parvaneh is a young Afghan immigrant who recently arrived at a transit centre for asylum seekers in the Swiss Alps. The only things she has got to know yet are the rural area surrounding the centre and the centre itself.
The wife of Nasim, an Afghan immigrant in Iran, is gravely ill. He needs money to pay for her care, but his day labor digging wells does not pay enough. A friend connects Nasim to a two-bit promoter who sells tickets to watch Nasim ride a bicycle continuously for a week. The promoter brings in sick and aged spectators, haranguing them to find hope in Nasim's strength. Aided by his son, who feeds him as he rides, Nasim grinds out the days and shivering nights. Local officials believe this may be a plot and Nasim may be a spy; they try to sabotage him as do those who bet he won't finish the week. Will desperation alone get Nasim the money? Is any triumph an illusion?
Acclaimed director Abolfazl Jalili offers a compassionate story of the young Afghan refugee who lives illegally in Iran. 14-year-old Kaim drifts to the Delbaran crossing on the Afghan-Iran border, where he finds work at a coffee shop frequented by truck drivers. He feels at home in this small oasis of friendliness, though the sounds of war can be heard in the background, violent bandits prowl the roads, and opium is everywhere. As we watch Kaim run from one task to another day after day, we soon realize that we are watching a boy who is being cheated out of his childhood.
On a building site in present-day Tehran, Lateef, a 17-year-old Turkish worker is irresistibly drawn to Rahmat, a young Afghan worker. The revelation of Rahmat's secret changes both their lives.
Donya, a lonely Afghan refugee and former translator, spends her twenties drifting through a meager existence in Fremont, California. Shuttling between her job writing fortunes for a fortune cookie factory and sessions with her eccentric therapist, Donya suffers from insomnia and survivor's guilt over those still left behind in Kabul as she desperately searches for love.
San Diego, present day: The murders are starting again. A girl has been found with two holes in her neck and her body totally drained of blood. Lt Dan Richardson [Shane Pliskin] knows what it is but doesn't believe it, so he calls in blind art-dealer Micah [Gary Busey]. Micah confirms the lieutenant's suspicion that a vampire is at work and reminds him of the previous lesson learned by Jack Frost, who was forced to kill his best friend Nat McKenzie when Nat became a vampire.
A Russian doctor is invited to work at Afghanistan's top hospital during the war, and sees firsthand the carnage caused by the Islamist mujaheddin as they attempt to overthrow the socialist government.
After a defecting Russian general reveals a plot to assassinate foreign spies, James Bond is assigned a secret mission to dispatch the new head of the KGB to prevent an escalation of tensions between the Soviet Union and the West.
Stuck in a rut, reporter Kim Baker decides to shake things up by leaving her desk job in New York and taking a dangerous assignment in Afghanistan. Far from home and completely out of her comfort zone, a culture-shocked Kim befriends an adventurous reporter Tanya Vanderpoel, a stern Colonel, and a charming photojournalist to help her navigate this crazy new world.