The director Peter Kosminsky was once a documentary maker. In 1988 he made a film called Afghantsi, about the Red Army’s withdrawal from Afghanistan. The film won all sorts of awards, but what I loved about it were the sequences cut to a haunting piece of brilliantly chosen Afghan music. I resolved to track it down (pre-Internet=some work involved).

Except it wasn’t Afghan. Or Russian. It was Bulgarian, a song called Pritouritze Planinata (iTunes). It remains a spine-tingling piece of music – for me at least – but there was not one atonal note of Afghan or Soviet authenticity to it.

Did he break any rules? No. But Kosminsky might as well have chosen any piece of music. As it was he chose – well – a fake.

He now works in fiction, and his Bosnia film, Warriors, was excellent. His film on the death of David Kelly, The Government Inspector, was…artful. And yet that tiny fragment of music (which not even have been his choice) means I arrive at what he does uneasy – ready to be tricked. Not fair really.

About that time, I seem to recall, someone tried to sell some footage of an attack by Mujahedeen on a Russian convoy. The footage had cutaways in, obviously shot from the other side, of the Muj fighters charging. They were obviously “staged.” I wish I could remember who filmed them.