01/04/2025 - The European geopolitical miniseries helmed by Kasia Adamik and Olga Chajdas follows the Taliban’s takeover during the final days of the USA’s withdrawal from Afghanistan

The six-part, high-end miniseries Kabul is an ambitious European production helmed by duo of directors Kasia Adamik (Spoor [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Agnieszka Holland
interview: Zofia Wichlacz
film profile]) and Olga Chajdas (Imago [+see also:
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interview: Olga Chajdas, Lena Góra
film profile]). The geopolitical thriller centring on modern history has had its world premiere in the International Competition of Series Mania.

The miniseries begins on 15 August 2021, as US troops prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan and the Taliban regains control of Kabul. Co-written by Olivier Demangel (Class Act), Thomas Finkielkraut (Mercato) and Joé Lavy, Kabul follows the Nazany family as they face the rapidly shifting power structures. Zahara (Darina Al Joundi), a prosecutor investigating Taliban members for terrorism, becomes a target as the regime begins reclaiming territory. Her husband, Baqir (Vassilis Koukalani), hastily gathers essential belongings, and the couple heads to the French embassy in the hope of being evacuated. But Zahara has been placed on a Taliban kill list. Their daughter Amina (Hannah Abdoh), a young medic who has just completed her first transplant, decides to stay behind to care for a patient, rather than flee with her family. Meanwhile, their son Fazal (Shervin Alenabi), a former security checkpoint commander, becomes instructed to embed himself within the enemy ranks.

Around them, foreign actors, including French police officers, US intelligence agents, Italian diplomats and German soldiers, coordinate evacuation efforts from embassies and the airport. As conditions worsen, they oversee the final phases of withdrawal while managing growing threats on multiple fronts.

The series establishes a tight, fast-moving rhythm through its multi-threaded story. Each member of the Nazany family faces escalating personal risk, while embassy and military personnel contend with operational pressures: vetting evacuees, maintaining perimeter security, responding to Taliban advances and anticipating potential attacks from Daesh.

The family forms the emotional and generational core of the series, offering a civilian lens on a rapidly collapsing political order. Their diverging trajectories underscore the personal disorientation brought on by regime change and its more restrained, yet deeply felt, social implications. This is most evident in Amina’s arc, where youthful idealism collides with the gendered constraints imposed on Afghan women under the returning Taliban rule. The direction maintains consistent pressure across converging plotlines.

Kabul balances the urgency of real-time evacuation logistics with a plot mechanism of international crisis management. The miniseries sustains its tension through procedural realism, using intersecting timelines that mirror the fragmentation of both the city and the characters’ decisions. Merging the perspectives of civilians caught in the geopolitical churn with those of European embassy and military personnel facing uneasy decisions in a rapidly escalating and volatile situation, Kabul employs audience-engaging storytelling across intersecting strands of political, espionage and action-thriller genres.

Positioned within a growing body of European series engaging with contemporary geopolitical conflicts through a character-driven lens, Kabul’s procedural pacing, multi-perspective structure and genre infusion align it with current trends in international drama.

Kabul was produced by France’s 24 25 Films and Cinétévé in collaboration with the European Alliance, Panache Production (Belgium), La Compagnie Cinématographique (Belgium) and Blonde Productions (Greece). It was made as a co-production with France Télévisions, ZDF & New8, NPO (Netherlands), VRT (Belgium), SVT (Sweden), DR (Denmark), YLE (Finland), RÚV (Iceland), NRK (Norway) and Cosmote TV (Greece), in association with RAI​. Mediawan Rights handles the worldwide rights.