Kabul: When the Taliban charged in to Afghanistan's state-run film company in the mid-1990s intent on destroying all the movies, Habibullah Ali risked everything to save them.He hid thousands of reels of footage showcasing Afghanistan's rich cultural history, knowing that if the Taliban found out he faced certain death.

Hidden from Taliban, Afghanistan’s lost movies make a comeback in digital form. Two decades later those reels, which include long-lost movies and documentary images of Afghanistan before it was ravaged by violence, are being made available to watch again through digitisation.

“If they had found out we had hidden movies they would have killed us,“ Ali says, clutching a saved reel.

The Taliban -who banned cinema and music, during their rule -burned seve ral movie reels before leaving.

But they failed to discover some 7,000 precious films that Ali and his colleagues hid in various places across the Kabul premises of Afghan Film.

Two decades later those reels, which include long-lost movies and documentary images of Afghanistan before it was ravaged by violence, are being made available to watch again through digitisation.

The years-long project, which began this year, will bring back to life Afghan feature films, centred on love rather than war, and introduce young Afghans to a side of their country they've never known -peace. “We were very scared but by God's grace we were able to save the movies and now we have this culture alive,“ says the 60-year-old Ali, who has worked at Afghan Film for 36 years. The digitisation of the footage is being overseen by Afghan Film general director Mohammad Ibrahim Arify .“The reels were hidden in cans marked Indian or Western movies and in barrels buried in the ground,“ Arify says. “Many were stored in rooms blocked by a brick wall and in fake ceilings. They used all sorts of tricks,“ he adds, smiling.