"I DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOUR SILENCE": A PLEA FOR HELP FROM THE AFGHAN FILM COMMUNITY

Sahraa Karimi, one of Afghanistan's most acclaimed filmmakers, has delivered a desperate message to the global film and media community in the wake of the Taliban uprising in her homeland. Published via her social pages, Karimi has used her role as General Director of the Kabul-based Afghan Film Organisation (AFO) to plead for international aid on behalf of her people and the artistic community, providing moments of insight into the abject terror of life under Taliban rule. Her message* is reproduced below...

“To all the Film Communities in The World and [Those] Who Love Film and Cinema,

My name is Sahraa Karimi, a film director and the current General Director of Afghan Film, the only state-owned film company, established in 1968. I write to you with a broken heart and a deep hope that you can join me in protecting my beautiful people, especially filmmakers, from the Taliban. 

The Taliban have gained control of so many provinces. They have massacred our people, kidnapped many children, sold girls as child brides to their men. They have murdered women for their attire, gauged the eyes of a woman; they tortured and murdered one of our beloved comedians, murdered one of our historian poets, murdered the head of culture and media for the government. People affiliated with the government have been assassinated, some hanged publicly. 

Hundreds of thousands of families have been displaced, fleeing to camps in Kabul where they live in unsanitary conditions. There is looting in the camps, babies dying because they don’t have milk. It is a humanitarian crisis, and yet the world is silent.

We have grown accustomed to this silence, yet we know it is not fair. We know that this decision to abandon our people is wrong; that this hasty troop withdrawal is a betrayal of our people and all that we did when Afghans won the Cold War for the west. Our people were forgotten then, leading up to the Taliban’s dark rule, and now, after twenty years of immense gains for our country and especially our younger generations, all could be lost again in this abandonment.

We need your voice. The media, governments, and the world humanitarian organizations are conveniently silent as if this “Peace Deal” with the Taliban was ever legitimate. It was never legitimate. Recognizing them gave them the confidence to come back to power. The Taliban have been brutalizing our people throughout the entire process of the talks. 

Everything that I have worked so hard to build as a filmmaker in my country is at risk of falling. If the Taliban take over they will ban all art. Filmmakers, including myself, could be next on their hit list. They will strip women’s rights, we will be pushed into the shadows of our homes and our voices, our expression will be stifled into silence. 

When the Taliban were in power, zero girls were in school. Since then, there are over 9 million Afghan girls getting an education. This is incredible. Herat, the third-largest city, had nearly 50% women in its university; it is now under Taliban control. These are incredible gains that the world hardly knows about. In just a few weeks, the Taliban have destroyed many schools and 2 million girls are forced now out of school again.

I do not understand this world. I do not understand your silence. I will stay and fight for my country, but I cannot do it alone. I need allies like you. Please help us get this world to care about what is happening to us. Please help us by informing your countries’ most important media what is going on here in Afghanistan. Be our voices outside Afghanistan. If the Taliban take over Kabul, we may not have access to the internet or any communication tool at all. Please engage your filmmakers, artists to support us to be our voice.

This war is not a civil war, this is a proxy war; an imposed war that is the result of the US deal with the Taliban. Please share this fact and write about us on your social media. The world should not turn its back on us. We need your support and your voice on behalf of Afghan women, children, artists, and filmmakers. This support would be the greatest help we need right now.

Please help us get this world to not abandon Afghanistan. Please help us before the Taliban take over Kabul. We have such little time, maybe days. Thank you so much. 

I appreciate your pure, true heart, so dearly.

With regards, 

Sahraa Karimi.”

*Some minor edits for space.

KINOSCOPE STRANDS, NEW TALENT INITIATIVE FORGING AHEAD ONLINE AT SARAJEVO FILM FEST

At 26, the Sarajevo Film Festival (SFF) is still a young festival by European standards. Youthful exuberance permeates the 2020 program, with no strand more indicative of progressive, cutting-edge curation than the Kinoscope selection, which this year presents a 15 film roster of the best in international cinema via the festivals’ recently-launched online portal.

The SFF Directorate moved from its planned hybrid festival to a wholly virtual event when the Civil Protection Headquarters of Sarajevo Canton and the Federal Ministry of Health issued a COVID-19 action plan on August 4 that included "recommendations to the population in the Federation of [Bosnia and Herzegovina] to avoid public gatherings and limit their movement due to the deteriorating epidemiological situation.” 

Festival organisers, who had employed measures to meet the August 14 launch that allowed for open-air screenings and adhered to social-distancing rules, reacted immediately. The full program, including the Opening night film Concentrate Grandma from director Pjer Žalica (pictured, right), moved to ondemand.sff.ba and will be available to all residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina and its neighbours.

In addition to the core In Focus strand, which presents ten features from the region, and the 49 films vying for honours in the Competitive Programs, the SFF Kinoscope highlights contemporary themes and global film trends. Established in 2012, Kinoscope is programmed by producer and curation veteran Mathilde Henrot and Alessandro Raja (pictured, below), founder of the Festival Scope platform. In 2020, the pair have selected works representing 14 countries, including eight unique visions from women directors.

Under the ‘Kinoscope’ banner, SFF will present Guillaume Brac’s French road-trip comedy, À l'abordage (All Hands on Deck), starring Eric Nantchouang and Asma Messaoudene; Hong Sang-soo’s minimalist drama Domangchin Yeoja (The Woman Who Ran), winner of the 2020 Berlinale Silver Bear for Best Director; the Danish crime family drama Kød & blod (Wildland), from Jeanette Nordahl; Gagarin, the breakout Cannes 2020 hit from co-directors Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh’ and, Kitty Green’s understated but blistering post-Weinstein/#MeToo statement, The Assistant, with Julia Garner.

‘Kinoscope Real’ offers five works of potent social relevance, presented across a diverse range of genres. The ability for cinema to bring hope to a family in wartorn Donbas is documented in Iryna Tsilyk’s Ukrainian/Lithuanian co-production, Zemlia Blakytna Niby Apel'syn (The Earth is Blue as an Orange); fellow Ukrainian Valentyn Vasyanovych’s bleak, PTSD-themed scifi-er, Atlantis; Garagenvolk (Garage People), director Natalija Yefimkina’s insight into the garage-dwelling communities of Russia’s frozen north; Camilo Restrepo’s revenge thriller Los Conductos (Encounters), a French/Colombian/Brazilian co-pro that chronicles of a man seeking redemption through the killing of a sect leader; and, from the enclaved kingdom of Lesotho in South Africa, the spiritually uplifting eco-drama This is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection from filmmaker Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese.

Finally, the artistically fearless films of the ‘Kinoscope Surreal’ selection. These include Shirley, Josephine Decker’s descent into the mad literary mind of author Shirley Jackson, featuring a vivid turn in the title role by Elizabeth Moss; Noah Hutton’s low-tech scifi vision of a man-vs-robot workplace, Lapsis; UK director Rose Glass’ acclaimed thriller Saint Maud, a study in the dangers of hardline religious beliefs as seen through a complex female relationship; the Australian festival hit Relic, starring Emily Mortimer and Bella Heathcote as the mother and daughter who must cope with the horrific manifestations of a matriarch’s dementia; and, South Korean auteur Kim Yong-Hoon’s bag-of-cash mystery/thriller, Beasts that Cling to Straw (pictured, right).

At time of publishing, all these films will be available to Bosnia and Herzegovina residents via the festival screening platform. Also scheduled to be broadcast online will be accompanying programs, lectures and interviews with authors, including the 14th edition of the industry development program Talents Sarajevo, featuring 62 young candidates chosen from the filmmaking communities of Southeast Europe and the South Caucasus.

The SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL will commence August 14 at 8.00pm CEST and run until August 21. Visit the event’s Official Website for further details.

THE LIST: NINE GREAT FIRST-NATION FILMS

Indigenous history and culture has too often been poorly misrepresented on film or filtered through well-meaning but simplified stereotypes. As more and more Indigenous filmmakers emerge, all audiences enjoy the benefits of losing themselves in an abundance of stories drawn from lived experience. Here are nine standouts...

U.S.A.: SMOKE SIGNALS (Dir: Chris Eyre, 1998; pictured, above) A road-trip drama that connects the histories and destinies of Victor (Adam Beach) and Thomas (Evan Adams), who grew up together along the Spokane River on the Coeur d’Alene Indian Reservation. Victor must retrieve his father, but Thomas is the only one who can help him get there. Of Cheyenne/Arapaho heritage, Eyre crafted a film now considered a contemporary classic, beloved by Native American audiences for its non-stereotypical characterisations and understanding of modern reservation living. In 2018, the film was placed on the National Film Registry by the National Film Preservation Board.

BRAZIL: THE LEGEND OF UBIRAJARA (Dir: André Luiz Oliveira, 1975) Son of an Araguaia chief, Ubirajara (Tatau) spies Araci (Taíse Costa) on the shore. He pursues her, leading to a battle with Pojuca (Roberto Bonfim), the mightiest Tocantim warrior. But Ubirajara and Araci have fallen in love; when the truth is revealed, a war breaks out between the two villages. Spoken entirely in Karaja, this pre-Columbian adventure is considered to be one of the most naturalistic film portrayals of tribal life.

CANADA: ATANARJUAT THE FAST RUNNER (Dir: Zacharias Kunuk, 2001) Centuries ago, in the Canadian Arctic, Atuat (Sylvia Ivalu) is promised to the tribal leader’s son Oki (Peter-Henry Arnatsiaq), but instead falls in love with the good-natured Atanarjuat (Natar Ungalaaq). Oki learns of their love and sets about enacting a terrible revenge on Atanarjuat. The first Inuktitut-language feature film, it is the only Canadian film to win the Camera d'Or for best first feature film at the Cannes Film Festival. The now iconic ‘nude run’ over the sea of ice left Ungalaaq with deep cuts all over his bare feet.

ARGENTINA: LA NACIÓN OCULTA (Dir: Juan Carlos Martínez, 2011) Ñaalec (Fabián Valdez), a disenchanted Moqoit college student, seeks to deepen his connection to culture. He travels to the Nanaicalo Nqote ("Eye of the Dragon"), a sacred lake whose water gave people the power of the gods. This docudrama is part of a series of community-created films supported by Cinematography Education and Production Center (CEFREC) led by Iván Sanjinés, son of legendary Bolivian filmmaker Jorge Sanjinés.

NEW ZEALAND: MAURI (Dir: Merata Mita, 1988; pictured, right) Pioneering filmmaker Merata Mita became the first Māori woman to write and direct a dramatic feature with Mauri (translated as ‘life force’). Set around a love triangle in a small East Coast village, it explores cultural tensions, identity, and changing societal ways. Along with Ngāti (1987), Mauri was at the forefront of the emerging Māori screen industry. The crew numbered 33 Māori craftspeople (indigenous artist Ralph Hotere was production designer); the cast included the great Anzac Wallace (Utu, 1983; The Quiet Earth, 1985) and Māori activist Eva Rickard. A NZFC-financed restoration screened at the 2019 Venice Biennale.

COLOMBIA: EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (Dir: Ciro Guerra, 2015) The story of the relationship between Karamakate (Nilbio Torres), an Amazonian shaman and lone survivor, and two scientists, who work together over the course of 40 years to search the Amazon for a sacred healing plant. The first Colombian film to earn a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination and utilising four indigenous tongues (Cubeo, Wanano, Tikuna and Uitoto), the film derives its title from the great Amazon River, which carries the lead characters deep into the jungle. The regional government decorated the non-indigenous Guerra with the Order of the Inírida Flower for "exalting the respect and value of the indigenous populations”.

MACEDONIA: HONEYLAND (Dirs: Tamara Kotevska, Ljubomir Stefanov, 2019) The last female bee-hunter in Europe must save her bees and return the natural balance to her hives when a family of nomadic beekeepers threaten her livelihood. Nominated for two Academy Awards, the heartbreaking plight of traditional beekeeper Hatidze Muratova became a cause celebre on the 2019 arthouse circuit. The production shot for nearly three years and accumulated over 400 hours of footage. After the first wave of festival wins, the producers bought Hatidze a house with water and electricity close to the capital of Skopje; she still tends to her bees several days a week.

SAMOA: THE ORATOR (Dir: Tusi Tamasese, 2011). Samoan-born, NZ-trained director Tamasese made his debut with the island nation’s first feature film in the Samoan language with an indigenous cast. Set amidst lush tropical jungles and hand-toiled farmlands, it relates the outsider’s journey of Saili (Fa'afiaula Sanote), a little person and taro farmer, whose destiny is derailed when he is denied his father's chiefly status, threatening his family plantation. Tamasese takes care to respectfully depict Samoan family bonds (fa'aSamoa) and traditions such as evening prayer time (sa) and ritual atonement (ifoga) in a film that unfolds at a gentle pace but remains dramatically compelling.

AUSTRALIA: RADIANCE (Dir: Rachel Perkins, 1998) To mourn their mother’s passing, Aboriginal sisters Nona (Deborah Mailman) and Cressy (Rachael Maza) return to their childhood home where their third sister, Mae (Trisha Morton-Thomas), cared for the matriarch in her final years. With time to talk, drink and fight, the sister’s drag family secrets out that have festered for generations. A turning point in Australian storytelling, Perkin’s directorial debut tackled heritage, legacy and family in a contemporary setting. Fellow debutant Mailman earned the AFI Best Actress award.

EUROPEAN SECTOR CONDEMNS IRAN FOR PERSECUTION OF FILMMAKER

Heads of the European film sector have spoken in unison condemning the imminent incarceration of Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof. The director of the 2020 Berlinale Golden Bear winner There is No Evil, a film that casts a critical eye on the consequences of life under authoritarian rule, has been summoned by the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Offenses Relating to Media and Culture to serve one year in prison.

This comes after the Iranian Revolutionary Court sentenced the filmmaker (pictured, above) to one year in prison, with a two-year prohibition against working as a director, for alleged propaganda against the government, in July 2019. The internationally acclaimed Rasoulof, an Un Certain Regard winner for his films Lerd (2017) and Au Revoir (2011), is also under a two-year ban on leaving the country and becoming involved in any social or political activity.

"Summoning me to serve my prison sentence only reveals a small fraction of the intolerance and anger that is characteristic of the Iranian regime’s response to criticism,” Rasoulof says. “Many cultural activists are in prison for criticizing the government." He also points out that Iranian prisons are a hotbed for the Covid-19 virus, with conditions unlikely to change under the current regime. “These conditions call for an immediate response from the international community," he says. (Pictured, right; Baran Rasoulof, daughter of the director, and Ehsan Mirhosseini in There is No Evil). 

Institutions that have declared their support for Rasoulof are The European Film Academy, The Cannes Film Festival, the Deutsche Filmakademie, the Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, the Filmfest Hamburg, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), the Netherlands Film Fund and the Accademia del cinema italiano-Premi David di Donatello. The bodies have collectively called for the charges against him to be retracted and the travel ban against him to be lifted immediately and unconditionally.

Via a press statement, President of the European Film Academy, Wim Wenders, declared, "Our colleague Mohammad Rasoulof is an artist who keeps telling us about a reality we would otherwise know little about. There is No Evil is a deeply humane portrait of people in extreme situations, situations no human should be forced to experience. We need voices like that of Mohammad Rasoulof, voices defending human rights, freedom and dignity." (Pictured, left; actress Baran Rasoulof at the Berlin Film Festival, with her father and director on the phone, following his Golden Bear win).

Ulrich Matthes, President of the Deutsche Filmakademie, adds “His deeply humane films about freedom and oppression have reached so many people worldwide. He is a representative master of Iranian cinema: a rich film culture that has provided us with some of the most compelling stories about the human condition. Mohammad Rasoulof’s films not only tell us about life in Iran but also speak to us in the universal language of cinema to promote empathy and peace."

The European voices are also demanding Rasoulof’s health and safety be ensured and that film festivals, cinema chains and all artists globally make their protestations known to Iranian officials and embassy staff in their region.

BERLIN SCI-FI FILMFEST FETES M.A.J.I.C., THE TANGLE IN 2019 HONOURS ROLL

Highlighting the event’s growing international standing amongst speculative fiction filmmakers, works from Canada, Italy, Japan and The U.S. were among the honorees at this year’s Berlin Sci-fi Filmfest, which wrapped its third edition under festival directors Alexander Pfander and Anthony Straeger in the German capital this past weekend.

Erin Berry’s Roswell-inspired M.A.J.I.C., a post-X-Files riff that incorporates 'men in black' conspiracy theorising and alien tech-driven alternate realities, took out Best Feature in a hotly-contested field; the independent Canadian production was up against Milena Lurie’s Entangled, Navin Dev’s Zoo-head and Christopher Soren Kelly’s The Tangle for the top trophy. So close was the final tally that The Tangle was singled out for special mention with the Grand Jury Award. (Pictured, top; Paula Brancati, as Pippa Bernwood, in M.A.J.I.C.)

The other major stand-out from the festival line-up was Yuichi Kondo’s Ryoko’s Qubit Summer, a futuristic riff on teen romance that poses the question, ‘Can love exist between an A.I. and a human?’ The short film, featuring touching performances from Miku Komatsu and Ami Yamada, earned the Outstanding Film Award from official jurors Rick McLeod of Celtic Storm Films; Crawford Talents agency head Caprice Crawford; and, sound engineer Iwan Romanow. (Pictured, right; from left, Christopher Soren Kelly, Jessica Graham and Nicole da Silva in The Tangle)  

Berry was denied a double win when Aleem Hossain earned Best Director for After We Leave, a drama about a husband’s search for his wife before the opportunity to live off-world expires. The Best Script award was won by Spain’s Andres Malo Segura and Alfonso Segura Ballesteros for their short Luz Azul (Blue Light), the story of one man’s struggle to cope with a dark memory that has emerged from his archived brain patterns.

The U.K. sector offered up its finest thespians in genre roles, with Brits taking out both the acting categories. Best Actress honouree Krista De Mille (pictured, right) plays ‘Kate’, a warrior-mother fighting for the survival of her daughter, in Martin Gooch’s post-apocalyptic U.K. thriller Black Flowers, while Best Actor kudos went to Sam Gittins for Ciro Sorrentino’s time-travel/alternate reality romp, Time Perspectives.

The vibrant German science-fiction scene was acknowledged with Thorsten Franzen winning the Best Cinematography award for Daniel Raboldt’s man-vs-machine survival thriller A Living Dog, while Marcel Barion’s The Final Land won Outstanding German Contribution.

The highly prized Best Visual Effects category went to the Amsterdam-based post-production house PostPanic for their mesmerising debut science-fiction effort, Sundays. Shot entirely in Mexico City, it envisions a world under the control of a single mega-corporation after a solar flare renders the planet powerless, and the young man whose independent thought may reveal the truth.

The Australian/Croation co-production Slice of Life, co-directors Luka Hrgovic and Dino Julius’ stunning return to the urban decay of Ridley Scott’s masterpiece Blade Runner, won Best Fan Film, against the Star Wars-inspired works Bucket Head and The Lightsaber Maker and the ectoplasmic comedy Ghostbusters Italia. Jason Axinn’s blood-splattered cartoon nightmare To Your Last Death, featuring the voices of William Shatner, Ray Wise, Bill Moseley and Deadpool star Morena Baccarin, won for Best Animation.

Others who walked away triumphant from the 2019 Berlin Sci-fi Filmfest included Andréanne Germain’s augmented reality coming-of-age tale Nova, which earned the Best Experimental/Music award; Brett Ryan Bonowicz’s Best Documentary winner Artist Depiction, a profile of the three illustrators who imagined the realities of NASA’s conjecturing (pictured, right); brothers Nick and Adam Hayes’ robo-militaristic Fight Machine, which won both Best Action Short and Best Web/TV Series categories; Patrick Hagarty’s hilarious twist on holiday homecoming Home in Time, for Best Comedy Short; and, Stephen Eigemann’s emotion-filled Rewind, which took Best Drama Short honours for its exploration of how VR technology can help the parent of a deployed soldier deal with anxiety and grief.

REWIND (short film) TEASER from Stephan Eigenmann on Vimeo.