Made under dangerous conditions, this documentary charts how the lives of three women were turned upside down by Afghanistan\u2019s overthrow in 2021<\/p>\n
Afghan film-maker Sahra Mani, creator of the rape-survivor documentary A Thousand Girls Like Me<\/a> from 2018, brought her camera to Kabul to chronicle Afghanistan\u2019s fall to the Taliban in 2021 following America\u2019s withdrawal. A strange mixture of amnesia and cross-party reticence means that this issue has not in fact featured much in postmortem discussions of the Biden\/Harris administration. Women\u2019s rights were immediately crushed by theocratic misogynists, and Afghanistan\u2019s women cannot have been reassured by the response from the western anti-war left<\/a>, notably the now notorious, breezily unconcerned tweet from Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis: \u201cHang in there sisters!\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Mani\u2019s film shows three Afghan women hanging in there with zero help from anyone but themselves and, like Hasan Oswald\u2019s film Mediha<\/a> (exec-produced by Emma Thompson), this has been mentor-produced by big names: Jennifer Lawrence and Malala Yousafzai<\/a>. Zahra Mohammadi is a dentist who, as something of a public figure, was immediately harassed and her practice \u2013 so valuable to all members of the community, both women and men \u2013 closed down by the bullies. The street sign advertising the existence of her business and indeed her own existence is instantly a focus for tension; she is \u201cZahra Mohammadi\u201d on the sign rather than \u201cZ Mohammadi\u201d.<\/p>\n