THE MUSIC ROOM AT FRIEND’S HEARTH
INVITES YOU TO A MEMORIAL SCREENING OF THE FILM

Amir. An Afghan Refugee Musician’s Life in Peshawar, Pakistan

Saturday 21 October 5.00pm BST

Place: The Music Room
203 Preston Road, Wembley HA9 8NF
(Underground: Preston Road (Metropolitan Line))

We regret to announce the death of our dear friend Amir Jan Herawi after a short illness in Peshawar on 14 September 2023. We offer our condolences to his family wife and children.

Amir was a professional musician, singer and rubab player, born in about 1950. He was brought up in the musicians’ quarter of Herat, where his aunt Zainab Herawi was one of the famous women singers. John Baily got to know Amir in the 1970s, during his extended ethnomusicological fieldwork Herat. In 1985, at the height of the war between the Communist Government of Babrak Kamal, supported by Soviet forces, and the alliance of the seven Mujahideen parties, John Baily, then a Royal Anthropological Institute Film Training Fellow at the National Film and Television School, set out to make a documentary film about Afghan music in the midst of this conflict, accompanied by accomplished cameraman Wayne Derrick, a fellow student at the NFTS. A week after his arrival Baily, discovered his old friend Amir Jan living in Peshawar and working as a professional musician in the band  of Shah Wali Khan, a celebrated singer from Jalalabad who had become a star of local radio and television in Peshawar. The film document’s Amir’s life in Peshawar at that time.

The film will be introduced by John Baily, who will also field a brief Q&A session after the screening, followed by light refreshments with background music of studio recordings of Amir’s exquisite rubab playing.

“Amir. An Afghan Refugee Musician’s Life in Peshawar, Pakistan” is part of the Royal Anthropological Institutes’ extensive film archive and the screening is supported by the Institute.

The event is Free but will be ticketed. You can obtain your FREE entry pass from TMR EVENTS Box Office:

https://www.tmreventsuk.com/event-details-registration/amirfilmscreening 

Donations for Amir’s family will be readily accepted and sent to the family in Peshawar.