Script File

«THE AFGHAN SYNDROME» (2025) PILOT

This story is about a young Ober lieutenant of the special operations forces of the KSK Bundeswehr of Germany - Bruno Thevs, who served in the special intelligence anti—terrorist unit TF-47 (TASK FORCE 47) as part of the Joint Forces of the Western coalition ISAF in Afghanistan.
— After tough and grueling tests at the secret KSK base in Germany, Bruno passes a special selection and rotates into the Task Force 47 (TF-47) special unit as part of the Combined Forces of the Western ISAF Coalition in Afghanistan.
— Upon arrival at the unit and the beginning of combat activity, in one of the special operations, Ober lieutenant Bruno Thevs rescues the German reporter for "Der Spiegel" Otto Greenberg (prototype Stephen Farrell from the New York Times) from the Taliban captivity.
— The evacuation of the wounded journalist to the hospital of the MSF Doctors Without Borders humanitarian mission in Kunduz promotes Bruno's acquaintance there with the Afghan doctor Seeta Akhmadzai, a German citizen from a family of Afghan immigrants born in Munich.
— Bruno and Seeta are starting a romantic relationship.
— Also thanks to Otto Greenberg, Bruno Thevs receives from mujahid Ismatullah, who fought against the Soviet troops in the 1980s, relics — a notebook and two photographs belonging to his deceased Father— Konstantin Thevs.
— One of the photos shows six Soviet soldiers, including Konstantin. Ismatullah picked them up under boulders — the place where Soviet soldiers put their dead and wounded during the battle.
— Ismatullah, at Bruno's request, brings him to the mountainous region, the place where his father fought and died. There, from the mouth of Ismatullah, a direct participant in that dramatic event, Bruno listens to a story with detailed circumstances.
— Participating in TF-47 special operations against the Afghan Mujahideen, Ober lieutenant Bruno is faced with the excessive use of ISAF military force, justifying his actions by fighting the Taliban and international terrorism, but bringing victims and destruction to civilians.
— In the development of the plot, it is told about the actual airstrikes in Kunduz province, inflicted on civilian objects and dwellings of the population, which led to three tragedies with mass deaths of people.
— In one of these airstrikes on the MSF Doctors Without Borders hospital, together with civilians, with a group of doctors, Bruno's beloved girlfriend, Seeta Akhmadzai, is killed. The young couple should have already had a wedding. In another air raid, Otto Greenberg, a reporter for Der Spiegel who became Bruno's friend, is killed.
— These heavy losses strengthen Bruno's confidence in the inhumanity of the goals and means of the Bundeswehr and the entire Western ISAF alliance in Afghanistan. Bruno is also disappointed in his private military mission.
— At the end of his service in Afghanistan, Bruno returns to Germany and retires from military service. From there, he soon goes to his homeland in Jambul and pours a handful of Afghan soil collected by him at the site of the last battle on his Father's grave.
— Having found a phone number from an old notebook of one of the surviving comrades of his father, a legless invalid Rustam Tukaev (Rust), Bruno flies to Moscow. Rust tells him the military history of his father — Kostyan (Konstantin Thevs) and his 5 friends - Strela (German Streltsov from Leningrad), Mongol (Darkhan Badmaev — Buryat shaman from Ulan—Ude), Sidor (Sergei Sidorenko from Rostov-on-Don), Koster (Ivan Kostrov from Moscow), and with them his own — Rust (Rustam Tukaev from Tatarstan). From the narrative, Bruno learns about the vicissitudes of Koster, Sidor and Rust on their return from Afghanistan.
— The political crisis in Moscow in October 1993, which escalated into an armed confrontation between supporters of the President and the Supreme Council, splits Russian society into two halves. On different sides of the barricades were those who, a few years ago, fought shoulder to shoulder in Afghanistan and sacrificed themselves for friends. Sidor, Rust and Koster are honest before their conscience and true to their beliefs.
— Sidor, who firmly believes in the strict adherence of the Supreme Council and the Council of People's Deputies, to the Constitution of Russia, finds himself in the camp of defenders of the House of Soviets. Rust and his comrades from the Union of Veterans of Afghanistan are on the side of President Yeltsin. The Alpha officer Koster performs the tasks assigned by the command.
— Having arrived at the House of Soviets at the beginning of the armed confrontation with a group of comrades from the Union of Veterans of Afghanistan, Rust will be wounded with a sniper bullet.
— Rust's life is hanging by a thread, he is in a coma, and spends several months in a hospital bed.
— Koster, risking his life, takes out a wounded Sidor from the upper floor of the House of Soviets, engulfed in flames, but soon, carrying out a wounded soldier from under fire, he himself dies. A young daughter Masha remains after him.
— In the second half of the 1990s, Sidor joined a large diamond business, but by a fateful coincidence, he was outlawed and received a long prison sentence.
Despite a long imprisonment and a special habitat, Sidor retains morality and moral principles.
— Sidor's release from prison coincides with Bruno's arrival in Russia.
— Bruno and Rust go to meet Sidor at the gates of the colony and on the way back they get into a twist.
— Upon returning to Moscow, Rust introduces Bruno to the daughter of the deceased Koster, Masha Kostrova, a student of Lomonosov Moscow State University.
— United by a common misfortune — the loss of their father-friends, Bruno and Masha will connect with a relationship.

  • Iliyas Daudi
    Writer
  • Project Type:
    Television Script
  • Number of Pages:
    70
  • Language:
    English
  • First-time Screenwriter:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Writer Biography - Iliyas Daudi

ILIYAS DAUDI, Russian writer, member of the «Union of Writers of Russia», screenwriter, film director, clipmaker, producer, soldier of the Afghan War (1979-1989), Hero of the Russian Federation.

IMDb nm 15078873 — https://m.imdb.com/name/nm15078873/

Author of novels about the Afghan War (1979-1989).

Bibliography

* «In the Kunduz Circle» military historical novel-trilogy
* «The Great Game in Afghanistan» monograph
* «We'll all be back!» novel
* «Not by the front corridor» military novel
* «The Zugzwang of Ober lieutenant Bruno Thevs» a military novel.

— In 2024, he graduated from the 2-year Higher Courses of directing and producing films and television of the S.A. Gerasimov's All-Russian State University of Cinematography (VGIK). At the same time, he continued his studies at the VGIK, in the master's degree of the screenwriting and Film studies faculty. The author of the script, director and actor of the Short Films: «SELF-PORTRAIT», «THE BLIND»; Music Video «SULTONI QALBAM» HIMN OF LOVE (2024), «THE BETROTHED» (2024), «SULTAN OF MY HEART» (2024), «ETERNAL LOVE» (2024). «EVERY MUSIC HAVE J.S. BACH» (2024).

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Writer Statement

TIME SLICES

— The first, present, 2000s tells about the Ober lieutenant of the special operations forces of the KSK Bundeswehr — Bruno Thevs, the son of a Soviet soldier who died in Afghanistan.
— The second, a flashback to the recent past — an episode of the history of friends in the Afghan war and Modern Russia.
— The third, a flashback to the distant past — the Emirate of Afghanistan 1917-1942, the period of the struggle against Basmatism in the Afghan-Soviet border area.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

— The story is based on real events in Afghanistan, widely covered in the Western media, received a strong resonance in the world.
— The facts of the excessive use of military force by ISAF with the mass death of civilians took place in reality:
— during an air strike on the village of Umar-heil in the province of Kunduz — on civilians who had accumulated near fuel trucks, about 100 people were killed.
— during an air strike on the village of Daftani in Kunduz province — with the mass death of Hafiz children reciting the Koran from 8 to 14 years old on the day of graduation from the madrasah, about 100 children were killed.
— during an air strike on the MSF hospital of the international humanitarian mission «Doctors without Borders» in the city of Kunduz — a large number of civilians, European and Afghan medical workers who were in the buildings, killed more than 100 people.
— The prototype of Der Spiegel correspondent Otto Greenberg, who conducted a journalistic investigation of the inhuman actions of the ISAF, was the American New York Times journalist Stephen Farrell, kidnapped by the Taliban.