A study of the relationship between an Afghan translator, Ajmal Naqshbandi, and his American client, war journalist Christian Parenti. What begins as an intimate portrait of two colleagues at work turns dark when Taliban fighters in Southern Afghanistan kidnap Ajmal and an Italian journalist during a dangerous trip to interview a high-level commander. What follows is the tragic story of one man forgotten in the crossfire set against a failing state slowly losing the faith of its people.

Ian Olds is a director of both narrative and documentary work, including the recent Occupation: Dreamland, co-directed with Garrett Scott. Focused on American soldiers in Iraq, the film was released theatrically in fall 2005, garnered the 2006 Independent Spirit Awards’ Truer Than Fiction Award and was among 15 documentaries short-listed for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. Olds directed the fiction shorts Bomb and Two Men, which have screened at festivals in the U.S. and abroad, the latter winning Best Short at the 2005 Woodstock Film Festival. Olds was the recipient of a 2005 Princess Grace Award.

2006 MFA Directing, Film Division, Columbia University, New York
1998 BA Anthropology & Film Production, University of California at Santa Cruz