Genre: Drama/Thriller
Duration: 103 mins
Format: 35mm
Director: Andrei Kavun
Cast: Alexander Baluev, Yuri Belyaev, Bogdan Benyuk, Alexander Golubev, Vladimir Mashkov Facts: Russian Box Office Hit 2010

Based on true events, this film describes the capture by the Taliban in 1995 of an Ilyushin-76 freight aircraft in Kandahar. Accused of shipping arms the crew were imprisoned for over a year in Afghanistan and almost forgotten by the outside world. The story centres on the drama between the crew members and their captors while revealing and sometimes challenging contemporary attitudes. Along with casting some of Russia's finest actors the film is punctuated by intense action scenes and stunning visual effects of the airborne Ilyushin-76. The high production values helped this film reach blockbuster status in Russia.

The special effects supervisor and crew for the film were Australian. Kent Miklenda met Andrei Kavun at the Russian Resurrection Festival in Sydney in 2006 where Andrei was showing his previous blockbuster ‘Hunting Piranhas'. In 2007 they started work on the production of Kandahar together. There will be a special presentation of ‘behind the scenes' photographs from the production projected on the big screen after the film at selected sessions.

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