Mir Hussain recalls the first time a video camera was pointed at him, saying it seemed to look straight back at him. That encounter, decades ago, marked the start of an extraordinary on-screen chronicle: since 2002, film-makers Phil Grabsky and Shoaib Sharifi have followed his life through grinding poverty in Bamiyan province, migration to Afghan cities, and the collapse of the country under Taliban rule.
Mir and his family first reached wider audiences in 2021 through the Bafta-winning film My Childhood, My Country – 20 Years in Afghanistan. The new update, titled 25 Years in Afghanistan, reuses much of that earlier footage but reframes it entirely in light of what followed: in April 2021, US president Joe Biden announced the withdrawal of American troops, effectively leaving Afghanistan, along with allied nations including Britain, to Taliban control. Watching the earlier material now, knowing what came next, gives nearly every scene the weight of foreshadowing.
According to a national broadcaster's schedule listing, the updated film aired on Sunday, 17 August 2026 at 11.15pm on ITV1, as reported by a national broadcaster's television preview, which described it as an update carrying the story forward through the years after Western forces withdrew and the Taliban returned to power.
What is the film's central message?
Mir frames his own story as inseparable from that of his homeland.
This is the story of my country. A country that, despite everything, I love.
As anyone with even a passing knowledge of the region's recent history will recognise, that single word, everything, carries enormous weight. Afghanistan's modern history includes invasions and occupations by Russia and the United States, along with military entanglements involving other regional powers. The country has earned a reputation as unconquerable, yet it is a bleak irony that roughly once a decade, another power seems compelled to test that claim.
What was Mir's childhood like?
The documentary offers a close view of life at its harshest edges. Mir, though clearly intelligent, frequently missed school because he was needed to plough fields, tend the family's donkeys, or work in a coalmine. Even so, he remained strikingly upbeat as a boy.
We lived in a cave. It was quite good fun.
Throughout this period, American aircraft passed overhead while the family watched, holding onto hope that they might herald progress or rescue. These stark domestic scenes are cut against the confident public statements of foreign leaders, including George W Bush, Tony Blair, David Cameron, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Viewed now, every one of those declarations plays like a quiet setup for the betrayal that history shows was coming. Meanwhile, conditions at home kept worsening. Mir's mother, Murwarid, reflects on how far things fell.
I never thought I'd end up eating grass.
The footage captures the family's hardship with an intimacy that is difficult to overstate.
How did Mir's role change over time?
Eventually, Mir married a woman named Shukria, started a family, and relocated first to Mazar-i-Sharif and then, after failing to find work there, to Kabul, where opportunities were similarly scarce. The turning point in his story came when he had an idea.
I grew up being filmed. So I asked the film-makers if they could help me.
This moment raises a quiet ethical tension at the heart of the documentary: should film-makers intervene in the life of the person they are documenting? Yet refusing to help, when they had the means to do so, would be difficult to defend, particularly given that their sustained presence in Mir's life had already been shaping it in subtle ways all along.
Soon Mir was working as a camera operator himself, after the film-makers helped him find employment in Kabul, adding a new layer to the film: he became both subject and professional observer. He proved courageous and resourceful, taking on the dangerous work of filming the aftermath of suicide bombings, and later expanded into covering live sport. In a more stable country, this might have pointed toward a hopeful conclusion.
What happened after the Taliban's return?
Instead, in 2021, Western forces departed and the Taliban regained control, and for women in particular, daily life became sharply restricted under religious doctrine. In the sections of the documentary filmed in 2026, Shukria is given greater space to speak in her own words. The couple have since had a fourth child, a daughter, a development Shukria says she regrets. Mir's television work has since dried up, forcing him back into manual labour. Shukria observes that her husband lacks depth of reflection.
Mir has gone backwards. He has no plans.
As a closing note, it is a genuinely sorrowful one. Even during their hardest years, Mir and Shukria seemed to retain a spark of humour and hope, but that has given way to visible hesitation and drift. Shukria captures the mood plainly.
We are all stuck in this backwardness.
According to a broadcaster's programme listing, the updated film incorporates fresh material bringing both Mir's personal story and the broader situation for Afghan women under Taliban rule up to date.
How did the original documentary come about?
The earlier film premiered in 2021 under the title My Childhood, My Country: 20 Years in Afghanistan, tracing Mir's path from childhood into adulthood, according to an international documentary outlet's report. Grabsky and Sharifi first began filming Mir when he was eight years old in Bamiyan, a relationship that continued through the making of the 2021 film that this latest update revisits, as noted by the same national broadcaster's television preview cited above.
The themes explored in Mir's story echo those found in other recent documentaries examining conflict and displacement. Birds of War, for instance, similarly weaves intimate personal footage with the realities of war, while separately, Afghans resettled in Yorkshire have spoken about ongoing trauma and loss five years after the Taliban takeover, offering a domestic counterpoint to the events unfolding inside Afghanistan itself.
What happens next?
The updated film was scheduled to broadcast on ITV1 on 17 August 2026 at 11.15pm, according to the national broadcaster's television preview, airing in a late-night slot immediately following other scheduled programming that evening. No further instalments have been announced, though the film's makers have followed Mir's life for close to a quarter of a century, leaving open the possibility that his story, and that of his country, will continue to be documented.
Key Facts
- Mir Hussain has been filmed by documentary-makers Phil Grabsky and Shoaib Sharifi since 2002, starting when he was eight years old in Bamiyan province.
- The 2021 predecessor film, My Childhood, My Country – 20 Years in Afghanistan, won a Bafta award.
- The updated film, 25 Years in Afghanistan, aired on ITV1 on Sunday 17 August 2026 at 11.15pm.
- The update adds new footage covering the years since the Taliban's 2021 return to power, including the restricted situation for Afghan women.
- Mir and his wife Shukria have had a fourth child, a daughter, since the earlier film.
