Film maker and activist, Sahraa Karimi was the first woman to head Afghan Film back in 2019. She is also a director, and her debut feature, Hava, Maryam, Ayesha, a women-centric project, was the first fully Afghan production in a long time. The movie was filmed entirely in Kabul in Afghanistan and the cast consisted of Afghan actors. It went on to receive critical acclaim at the Venice Film Festival. The movie is a poignant and humanistic portrait of the intricacies of gender, culture and class, and the ways in which Afghan women are fighting to take back the reins of their life in their very hands.
Karimi is of the opinion that the film fraternity and artists in general have a political and social responsibility towards the society. For her, film making is not some simple entertainment, but has the potential of acting as an agent of change, a view that puts her at odds with the previous Afghan governments that didn’t invest in arts and cinema. In a virtual conversation with Afghan-Canadian director Tarique Qayumi, she reiterated that “filmmakers should raise their voice and push decision-makers not to recognise the Taliban.” [I] Recognising the power that art and artists hold, she published an appeal right after the Taliban takeover of her country for filmmakers around the world to join in an act of resilience and tweet out the hashtag #DoNotRecogniseTaliban.
Her next project, tentatively titled Flight from Kabul is unlikely to be filmed in her home country, now under Taliban rule. Instead, her project will capture the state of transit through which every Afghan that fled the country in search of refuge had to go through. For Karimi, it is important to document the plight of Afghans as it the only way through which she and others like her can get over the trauma.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahraa_Karimi
- https://www.dw.com/en/sahraa-karimi-to-direct-a-film-on-her-flight-from-afghanistan/a-59110698
- https://www.fairplanet.org/story/sahraa-karimi-the-world-has-to-know-other-stories-from-afghanistan/
[I] As quoted in her interview with Tarique Qayumi as part of the five-year campaign called Share Her Journey.