The movie was based on a third TV season of the show. The fourth is currently being filmed in Kabul, on a brightly lit stage erected inside the Markopolo Wedding Hall. The Markopolo lights up like a Christmas tree at night, a rare glimpse of gaiety in a sombre war-worn capital with little electricity and frequent blackouts. As we drove past the building on a chilly evening, my otherwise laconic Blackwater guards gestured at the Markopolo through the bullet-proof windshield: "They got more lightbulbs in that 'polo building than any place in this whole damn country."

I recall being struck by that brief glimpse of normality, thinking how appealing it would have been to drop by the Markopolo rather than my usual Kabul digs in the fortress-like US embassy or the military's Camp Eggers - the target of a deadly suicide bomb attack that killed one American soldier and wounded six others.

The big networks and movie studios were on the prowl at Sundance, and several have indicated serious interest in bidding on Afghan Star, particularly after it garnered the two festival awards. "This movie could be a real winner," says Tom Freston, the MTV founder who, as head of Viacom, plucked Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth from obscurity and helped it win an Oscar. "The social impact of Afghanistan's media explosion has been overlooked by journalists and policy-makers. I think Afghan Star lights up the whole country and perfectly captures, not just the power of music, but the deep yearning for normalcy and joy among the people."