A Kabul cop’s dream defines women’s struggle across a nation

It’s not difficult to imagine what those images would mean in a country where women endure years of abuse in silence,and lead much of their lives as dictated by others. Repeatedly in her films,Sahar asks women to take control of their destinies,and asks: “Is it a sin to be a woman? Is it a crime?” In the middle of that dialogue,she repeatedly breaks down — and you can hear in her voice the pain of what she must have gone through to reach where she has.

Her story,The Kabul Dream Factory,has been written and directed by Sebastian Heidinger,and part financed by German television network ZDF. It’s not as much a great insight into Sahar’s life as it is into her work in the context of the society she lives in,the troubles she faces doing what she does,the risks she takes,and her bravery in taking her film to war-hit provinces like Helmand and Kandahar.

Sahar largely does it alone,knocking on doors of the German Embassy,the Europe Interpol,the Afghan Interior Ministry for help. In a hilarious scene,the Europe Interpol says the donors they are talking to are ready to offer $15 a day for her to take her mobile cinema around the country. A shocked Sahar asks what she will do with that amount. The cost of travel,food,accommodation for “civilised people like you” apart,she later says,“nobody will go to Helmand for $500 a day.” She asks her associate whether he was Mullah Omar’s son or that of Osama bin Laden to take them to Helmand: “All they need is a thread to slit your throat.”

Around the time of the elections,they hide away their cameras and tapes in her house — never sure what the new regime would entail. The fall of the Taliban,Sahar says at one point,was “the happiest day of my life”. In the years that have followed though,she adds,aid has dried up — perhaps with world attention moving on to other areas.

In the middle of shooting for The Kabul Dream Factory,even as she is working on a TV mini-series focusing on women’s rights and issues,Sahar gets pregnant and delivers a child. She didn’t tell anybody,she says. The film ends with the 10-month-old infant in her lap,as Sahar talks to a group of sisters about their future. Their only source of earning is the yoghurt that one of them,a slender girl of 10 or 11,sells.

Clearly Afghanistan has a long way to go. But in Sahar’s little films,in the sequence she records of new women recruits learning to march,in their taking the military oath without their scarves,in her glossy pant suits and her big dark glasses,and finally her daughter that she brings along on her shoots,a beginning has been made.