The world's focus has shifted to the war in Ukraine, but two major new documentaries aim to throw the spotlight back on Afghanistan and the people left behind by the United States' rapid withdrawal last year.

National Geographic's Retrograde follows an Afghan general who tried in vain to hold back the Taliban advance in 2021, while Netflix's In Her Hands tells the story of the country's youngest woman mayor, who had to flee as the Islamists took over.

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"We've forgotten about this story—when was the last time we discussed the war in Afghanistan, or read an article about it?" said Retrograde director Matthew Heineman. 

"Obviously there's still some coverage of it, but [...] not that many people are talking about this country that we left behind."

Zarifa Ghafari, the former mayor spotlighted by In Her Hands, told AFP that back under the Taliban, Afghanistan is "the only country around the world nowadays where a woman can sell their body, their children, anything else, but are not able to go to school.”

But at international political meetings, "Afghanistan is out of those discussions."

Both movies begin in the months before the US withdrawal, as their subjects tried to build a safer and more egalitarian future for their country.

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