When the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, taking a photo was a crime. After the regime fell from power in 2001, a fledgling free press emerged and a photography revolution was born. Now, as foreign troops and media withdraw, Afghanistan is left to stand on its own and so are its journalists. Set in a modern Afghanistan bursting with color and character, FRAME BY FRAME follows four Afghan photojournalists navigating a dangerous media landscape as they reframe Afghanistan for the world, and for themselves. Through cinema vérité, powerful photojournalism, and never-before-seen footage shot in secret during the Taliban regime, the film connects an audience with four humans in the pursuit of the truth.

An exiled Venezuelan director returns home to make a fiction film based on his own self-destructive father, who is cast to play himself. Father and son venture to the Amazon jungle to reenact the father's crazy misadventures of the past in illegal gold mining. Meant to bring them together, the film begins to conjure Father's deep-set pains of the present and a future devoid of his son. Their extremely personal approach to filmmaking spirals into something that could tear them apart forever.
Through cinema vérité, EL FATHER PLAYS HIMSELF explores the irreparable estrangement of migration and the limits of cinema in the representation of ourselves and those we love.