Will I Live Tomorrow?: One Woman's Mission to Create an Anti-Taliban Film in War-Torn Afghanistan

Description

When Sonia Nassery Cole set out to film "The Black Tulip" in her homeland of Afghanistan, she knew the odds were against her; she was told time and time again that filming inside a war zone would be impossible. What she didn't anticipate was how intent the Taliban and its sympathizers were on halting the film's production--the crew encountered exto

Sonia Nassery Cole came to the United States from her native Afghanistan as a teenager. In the early 1980s, Cole wrote to President Reagan requesting help for the people in her native Afghanistan, under attack then from the Soviet Union. The president invited her to Washington, D.C., and she worked with him to get congressional authorization for intervention in Afghanistan. Since then, Cole has actively worked with various organizations and committees set up for the improvement of the conditions and quality of life in Afghanistan. Among these is the Afghanistan Relief Committee, set up by past U.S. ambassadors to Afghanistan. In response to the urgency of humanitarian relief required in Afghanistan following Western military intervention post 9/11, Cole founded the Afghanistan World Foundation (AWF). The AWF has worked with various other organizations on making healthcare and education more accessible to Afghan children. Her film The Black Tulip was Afghanistan's official submission to the 2010 Academy Awards and releases in the United States on October 26, 2012. The film has premiered in prestigious film festivals all over the world.

"Sonia Cole took an extraordinary journey, at great personal risk, to tell one of the most important stories of our time. Her powerful act of conscience is a contribution to all our lives." --Marianne Williamson, New York Times bestselling author "An amazing read, with beautiful illustrations in the midst of despair." --Natalie Cole, Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, and performer "With great determination to expose the dangers of women's lives in Afghanistan, the author ... courageously placed herself in harm's way in order to speak for all the women who struggle daily to survive. This tale of desperation and hope is a compelling read." --Terry Semel, former chairman and CEO, Yahoo!; former chairman and CEO, Warner Bros. "Sonia Cole recounts the making of her film The Black Tulip, the first feature film ever made by a woman in war zone Afghanistan and one of the first films made in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban. It's a dramatic story she tells with great passion." --Peter L. Bergen, author, Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden, from 9/11 to Abbottabad "Will I Live Tomorrow? is an amazing account of turning a dream into a reality. Sonia Cole ... had to be part-filmmaker, part-politician, part-psychologist, and part-general in order to pull off a miracle in pursuit of an artistic endeavor." --Roger Birnbaum, co-chairman and CEO, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc. "A gripping eyewitness account of today's Afghanistan killing fields... A firsthand narrative of a harrowing adventure within a death-defying experience amid the flames and fanaticism of the Taliban war." --Charles W. Stroud, cofounder and governing director, Afghanistan World Foundation "At great risk, we told a story about the real-life terrors of living inside the war in Afghanistan while enduring those actual fears and dangers ourselves." --David McFarland, director of photography, The Black Tulip "Will I Live Tomorrow? is defining our future. A brilliant and riveting work that warns the world if people of conscious and reason will not act for the sake of justice, Afghan history and culture will be hijacked by the Taliban. Brave, powerful, and a revelatory piece." --Farid Younos, author, university lecturer, women's rights activist, and Afghan-American television personality