Afghanistan was not the first country in which director James Longley tried to make a school-based film. He made multi-year attempts at the project in both Iran and Pakistan before moving the film to Afghanistan. He then filmed continuously for over three years in a Kabul school to make Angels Are Made Of Light.
A full English translation of the 500 hours of filmed material and interviews for Angels Are Made Of Light was created for editing. The transcript stretched to over 8,000 typed pages.
Although the photography in Angels Are Made Of Light resembles story-boarded fiction filmmaking, all scenes are actually unplanned and extemporaneous. Similarly, the voice-over material used to express the inner-monologues of characters is taken entirely from their unscripted interviews, which were recorded off-camera over three years.
The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in September 2018.
Angels Are Made Of Light had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival in September, 2018.