Mobile cinemas showing films to Afghans for first time

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghans who have never seen a film before will get their chance this summer, courtesy of a French-organized network of mobile cinemas now traveling across the war-shattered nation, a United Nations spokesman said.

Caravans of four-wheel-drive vehicles equipped with video screens, projectors and generators will show three educational films in eight cities through next month, U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said.

The project is run by the French aid group AINA and supported by the United Nations, the European Union and other donors, Almeida e Silva said.

Last year, the mobile cinemas played to more than 400,000 Afghans -- 80 percent of whom had never seen a film before, Almeida e Silva said.

Afghanistan, a rugged Asian nation filled with remote mountain villages that have no electricity and little communication with the outside world, has been struggling to rebuild after nearly a quarter-century of devastating warfare.

Almeida e Silva said four-man teams would show the films in Badakhshan, Kandahar, Jalalabad, Mazar-e-Sharif, Bamiyan, Paktia, Herat and the capital, Kabul.

The films, produced by the Ministry of Information and Culture, cover three topics -- Afghan artists, cultural heritage and girls' education.

The former Taliban government, which sought to create an Islamic state based on its interpretation of Islam, banned girls from going to school.

The Taliban government was overthrown in a U.S.-led war in 2001, but girls' schools repeatedly have been threatened by Islamic conservatives and some have been burned down.