Afghan Female Directors Fear the End of Filmmaking Under Taliban: ‘They Can Easily Find Us, Kill Us, Get Rid of Us’

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentAfghan filmmaker Sahra Mani, who is at the Venice Film Festival gap financing market with the documentary “Kabul Melody,” says the lives of more than 150 students of Kabul’s National Institute of Music (ANIM) are at risk after armed Taliban guards shuttered the school and smashed all the musical instruments inside.A few days after the Taliban occupied Kabul “they went to the school and smashed all the instruments,” says Mani who has been making a

university professor tasked with ensuring Afghan girls continue to go to school has demanded ­international aid is used to negotiate with the Taliban. Former prime minister ­ Gordon Brown last week called for £5.7billion of support for ­education in the ­country to be overseen by Edinburgh ­University’s Liz Grant.

VENICE -- Afghan female filmmakers who fled the Taliban begged the world to not forget the Afghan people and to support its artists, warning Saturday that a country without culture will eventually lose its identity.The Venice Film Festival organized a panel discussion Saturday to give a platform to Sahraa Karimi, the first female president of the Afghan Film Organization, and documentary filmmaker Sahra Mani, who is presenting a project at the Venice film market fair.Karimi choked up while

A powerful panel to discuss the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan and the role the artistic community can play in increasing awareness was held at the Venice Film Festival this afternoon. It was notably attended by Afghan filmmakers Sahraa Karimi and Sahra Mani.

In the video, the host of “Pardaz” said that the Islamic Emirate — the name by which the Taliban refers to itself by — wants the public to “cooperate with it and should not be afraid.” BBC reporter Kian Sharifi says that the host then interviewed one of the Taliban fighters in the studio, though he was unable to translate the interview. The programme is called Pardaz.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThe upcoming Venice Film Festival is set to become a focal point for discussion on the crisis underway in Afghanistan and how it is impacting filmmakers and Afghan artists in general as the Taliban take power.As previously reported by Variety, Afghan filmmaker Sahraa Karimi, who is the first woman president of the country’s national film entity Afghan Film –– and made a recent appeal as she escaped from Kabul about the return of Taliban rule and the

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Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentAfghan filmmaker Sahraa Karimi, who was at the Venice Film Festival in 2019 with female-centric drama “Hava, Maryam, Ayesha,” will soon be traveling back to the fest to raise awareness about the plight of filmmakers in her country after the Taliban’s reclamation of power.Karimi is also head of state-run company Afghan Film –– the first woman to head the org –– and managed to flee her country shortly after Kabul fell into the Taliban’s grip.

Editors Note: Over the horrendous last couple of weeks as America began its final withdrawal from Afghanistan and Taliban zealots took control again after two decades, veteran foreign affairs correspondent and Only Cry for the Living: Memos from Inside the ISIS Battlefield author Hollie McKay has been back in the South Asian nation to see history sadly repeat itself.

Editors Note: Over the horrendous last couple of weeks as America began its final withdrawal from Afghanistan and Taliban zealots took control again after two decades, veteran foreign affairs correspondent and Only Cry for the Living: Memos from Inside the ISIS Battlefield author Hollie McKay has been back in the South Asian nation to see history sadly repeat itself.

Manori Ravindran International EditorMembers of an all-girl robotics team from Afghanistan, the majority of whom narrowly fled the country following the Taliban’s brutal takeover of power, are the subjects of a new feature documentary depicting the group’s rise to become national heroes, Variety can reveal.Directed by David Greenwald and produced by Beth Murphy, “Afghan Dreamers” — named after the original team of six girls — is in post-production, though currently on hold as the pair

Linda Norgrove Foundation has issued a public appeal for Boris Johnson to get two of its staff members, who are sisters, out of the Taliban-controlled capital. The two women are in hiding in the city with their families and despite cross-party pressure from MPs over the past week the UK Foreign Office has not contacted them for evacuation.

Shahrbanoo Sadat, the Afghan filmmaker whose credits include 2019 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight pic The Orphanage, has successfully fled Kabul, according to her Danish producers Adomeit Film.

Rebecca Davis editorKabul-based filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat has made it out of Afghanistan, her producer Katja Adomeit formally announced on Monday.Sadat was able to make it through thronging crowds and Taliban checkpoints into the airport along with nine of her family members after numerous days of trying, said Adomeit, who is also CEO of Adomeit Film. Sadat is currently in Abu Dhabi and will soon board a plane to Europe.

Afghanistan, it is believed. The child died after falling from a window at the Sheffield Metropolitan Hotel on Blonk Street at 2.30pm on Wednesday, August 18.