GUEST: Benjamin Gilmour, writer and director of Jirga. His earlier films include Paramedico and Son of a Lion. His new movie, filmed and set in Afghanistan is called Jirga.

BACKGROUND: The United Nations just released a report detailing the devastating toll of the Afghanistan war and found that in the first half of this year alone nearly 4,000 Afghan civilians were killed or injured. The UN has also found that US-backed Afghan forces and the occupying NATO coalition have killed more civilians than members of the Taliban - a new trend in the longest official war that the US has ever waged.

Although successive presidents have promised to end the Afghan war, it drags along year after year. Now, an independent filmmaker hopes to shed light on the war through a film that was made under extremely dangerous circumstances in Afghanistan.

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