Women for Afghan Women



	WAW Benefit Movie Screening Featuring Osama Date: January 7th, 2004 Time: 7:00 p.m. Place: 1350 6th Avenue (at 55th Street) Cost: $10

	Evening included: appetizers and wine, movie screening, plus question and answer session with the director, Siddiq Barmak. This benefit was so popular that it entirely sold out and had a waiting list. Osama later went on to win a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film. United Artists presents a Barmak Films production OSAMA A film by Siddiq Barmak The first entirely Afghan film shot since the rise and fall of the Taliban. CREDITS Cast: Marina Golbahari Khwaja Nader Arif Herati Zubaida Sahar Hamida Refah Gol Rahman Ghorbandi Director / Editor / Screenwriter Siddiq Barmak Assistant Directors Kaveh Moeinfar Homayon Paeiz Mirvais Rekab Razi Mohebi Cinematographer Ebrahim Ghafuri Assistant Cinematographer Reza Sheakhi, Mehdi Amiri Photographer Vahid Ramagh Soundmen Behrouz Shahamat Farokh Fadai Sound & Mix Mastaneh Mohajer Hussein Mahdavi Set Designer Akbar Meshkini Assistant Editing Mastaneh Mohajer Production Managers Simak Alagheh Band Abubakr Atef Script Supervisor Agheleh Rezaei Music Mohammad Reza Darwishi Laboratory Studio Filmsaz Producers Barmak Films Co-Producers NHK (Japan) and leBrocquy Fraser Ltd. (Ireland) Production Notes A 12-year-old Afghan girl and her mother lose their jobs when the Taliban closes the hospital where they work. The Taliban has also forbidden women to leave their homes without a legal companion. With her husband and brother dead there is no one left to support the family, and without being able to leave home for food or work the mother is left with nowhere to turn. Feeling she has no other choice, she disguises her daughter as a boy. Now called Osama, the girl embarks on a terrifying and confusing journey to survive as she tries to keep the Taliban from finding out her true identity. Inspired by a true story, Osama is the first entirely Afghan film shot since the rise and fall of the Taliban. United Artists and leBrocque Fraser Productions and NHK present Osama, in association with Swipe Films. Written, directed, produced, and edited by Siddiq Barmak, Osama stars Marina Golbahari, Arif Herati, and Zubaida Sahar. Produced by Barmak, Julia Fraser, and Julie leBrocquy, the filmmaking team includes production designer Akbar Meshkini, composer, Mohammed Reza Darwishi, and director of photography Ebrahim Ghafuri. Synopsis: A 12-year-old girl, her mother, and a local village boy narrowly survive the brutal end of a peaceful demonstration organized by women who are oppressed by the cruel Taliban regime. After witnessing such inhumane treatment, the mother is reminded of her own hardships as she and her daughter struggle to maintain their existence. With the young girl’s father and brother killed, they must find any source of income they can while hiding it from the strict Taliban, which mandates that no woman may work or be outside the home without a legal male companion. The mother and her daughter care for patients at a sparse, under-stocked hospital run by foreigners. After a Taliban raid, the hospital is shut down and the mother and daughter are without income. Desperate for any type of job, the mother is forced to cut her daughter’s hair and dress her as a boy so that she might earn money for the family. The mother pleads with a grocer who knew her husband to help her and hire the young girl to work in his store. He agrees and attempts to protect the girl – now disguised as a boy – and teach her how to be more convincing. One afternoon, the Taliban’s religious police force all the men to a mosque for prayer. The girl, unfamiliar with the ways men pray, makes several mistakes and raises suspicion with one of the Taliban officials overseeing the ritual. He approaches the grocer and the girl after the prayers and questions them. The girl is filled with fright, but with the grocer’s help dispels the official’s doubt. The following day, all the boys of the village are corralled and taken to the Madrassa, a religious school which doubles as a center for Taliban military training. While attending the school, the girl’s masculinity is constantly called into question. The young village beggar from the first scene, aware of the girl’s secret, interjects and helps her, concealing her true identity by declaring her name is Osama. After increasing suspicions surface with the students and Taliban instructors, the girl is punished for not being able to complete a task proving her masculinity. In the end, the girl’s own physiology defies her to reveal her true identity. As a result of her monumental lie, she is put on trial in front of the Taliban court and sentenced to marry an old Mullah. Upon arriving at his home, the destitute girl discovers he has three other wives – and she’s forced to join them in their miserable world. IN HIS OWN WORDS – WRITER/DIRECTOR SIDDIQ BARMAK On Osama: When the Taliban took control of Kabul, after two weeks, I was obliged to escape from Kabul to the north through the Shamali Plain. After two and a half years, I immigrated to Pakistan. While in Pakistan, I was looking to make a short fiction film and was trying to find special subjects and characters. At first I wanted to collect as much information as possible, combining my real-life events with others’ recollections and experiences. Coincidentally, I read a letter from an old Afghan teacher about a little girl with a burning desire to attend school during the Taliban regime when it was forbidden for girls. She changed her appearance to look like a boy by cutting her hair and wearing boys’ clothes. Of course, it was a story which shocked me and my friends. That story inspired my film Osama. Osama is a bitter and tragic story of Afghan life under the Taliban regime, a terrible time when no one could make their own decisions. It’s a story about those who lost their identity and rights, using the little girl, Osama, as the conduit for their story. It is a story about fear in a time when people fear even the sounds of the shadows. It is a story about the seemingly endless injustices wrought unto women. And it is the story of a little girl and the injustice and religious extremism she’s forced to carry on her small shoulders. The first two short action films I made were with non-professional actors and actresses, mostly children. Those films were helpful when it came time to cast Osama. In order to get the children to play the way they did, I had to use many different styles and methods. Also, considering the current situation and the fears still present today, it was difficult to find the actresses for Osama. On filmmaking: Growing up, it was one of my dreams to become a film projectionist. It was one of my dreams to find something in that dark place where one line of light is shining towards a big white screen. Now I believe this line of light can be moved towards peoples’ minds and enlighten them, especially in Afghanistan. I love the poetic style of movies. In the case of Osama, I can say I was influenced by filmmakers Andrei Tarkovsky and Tengiz Abuladze; also, of course, the Iranian filmmakers Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Abbas Kiarostami. All these masters have had a big influence on my way of filmmaking. The Afghan people have many talented filmmakers with important things to say based on our strong cultural heritage and literary resources. That the first steps towards developing Afghan cinema are already taking shape is a testament to the international assistance we need in order to deliver our ideas to the world through film. I am a big optimist about the future of Afghan cinema. My expectation and my hope is that our nation’s pain, sorrows and suffering shock the world audience and change the minds and points of view about the future of the human psyche. I want to be a messenger of the aspiration and desire of Afghan filmmakers. About the Film: Osama is the first feature film to be made in Afghanistan in the post-Taliban era. The film also marks Siddiq Barmak’s feature directorial debut (he wrote, produced, and edited the film as well). Shot in Kabul last year, Osama examines the lives of the Afghan people while under the Taliban’s control, but the film also highlights lingering problems that exist even though the Taliban rule has ended. The actors in the film, all amateurs, are people from the city of Kabul. More than a year was spent in producing Osama. The project started in June of 2002 and was completed in March of 2003 in a suburb of Kabul after the collapse of the Taliban regime. Over the last 100 years, due to economic and cultural restraints, Afghanistan has produced less than 40 short and feature length film works (an unbelievable statistic of only one film per 2.5 years). In contrast, Afghanistan’s fruitful filmmaking neighbor, India, produces an astonishing 3 films per day. To encourage filmmaking, Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Makhmalbaf Film House created the infrastructure for the implementation of this project by giving material and mental support. The film was shot on an Arriflex 35mm B.L. 4 camera. Film editing was done at the Resaneh Pouya Institute in Tehran. Iran’s Ministry of Culture donated materials, filming equipment and laboratory services worth about $25,000 (US), and Makhmalbaf Film House donated cinema training sessions in Kabul, sent a team from Iran, and offered about $21,000 in financial support for the production of Osama. The Ministry of Culture also repaired the only BLI camera existing in Afghanistan and donated a library of 2000 cinema and literature books and 300 videotapes of Afghanistan’s film industry. Makhmalbaf Film House donated another 2,000 books, thus establishing the second cinema library of Kabul. The organization also presented the young filmmakers with a PD 150 digital camera, a video projector, a TV, a VCR, and other equipment worth $5,000. With materials provided by Makhmalbaf Film House, six filmmakers made six short films that ultimately become an episodic feature on a budget of $21,000. The filmmakers were able to keep all the profits from their work when it was shown in Japan at an exhibition called “Gabbeh.” In addition, Makhmalbaf Film House launched a painting program for Afghani children by hiring a 14-year-old for one year to paint 168 painters to be paid $9,000. To further support the Afghanistan film industry, the Iranian Producers’ Union sent 30 copies of their 35mm cinema productions to Kabul. Also, Iranian director/producer Mohsen Makhmalbaf transferred the ACEM (Afghan Children Education Movement) activities from Iran to Afghanistan by implementing 55 education and hygiene programs in Afghanistan in the past year. CAST AND CREW BIOGRAPHIES SIDDIQ BARMAK (Director / Writer / Editor) – Born on September 7, 1962, Siddiq got his masters in film direction from the Moscow University in 1987. Post graduation, Siddiq has been extremely involved in Afghan filmmaking, both before and after the Taliban period. From 1992 to 1996, Siddiq was head of the Afghan Film Organization but was forced into exile in Pakistan with the rise of the Taliban. Before that, he was one of the aides to Ahmed Shah Massoud, Afghanistan’s national hero during the Soviet invasion and in the Taliban resistance. Once the Taliban regime fell, Siddiq reestablished the Afghan Film Organization and went on to found the Buddha Film Organization. Unfortunately, all of Siddiq’s previous works were confiscated during the Taliban regime. Among his film credits are the Dari language film Urooj (Ascent) that depicts the Afghan resistance against the invasion of the Soviet Union from 1979-1989. In April of 2003, Mohsen Makhmalbaf appointed Siddig Barmak in charge of the Afghan Children’s Education Movement (ACEM). In doing so, the ACEM was officially in the hands of the Afghani people and will continue the tradition in the promotion of literacy, culture and arts for the children of Afghanistan. Barmak decided to use non-professional actors and actresses for Osama. To find the main character he looked in schools, orphanages, street children centers and refugee camps. Many of the actors came from the refugee camps, but Siddiq found the main character, Marina Golbahari, on the street. FILMOGRAPHY: Short Films: -Billard, Super 8, 20 min, 1980 -Wall, 35mm, 10 min, 1983 -Circle, 35mm, 20 min, 1984 -Stranger, 35mm, 38 min, 1986 Documentary Films: -The Disaster of Withering, 22 min, 1988 -The Hadith of Conquer, video, 115 min, 1991 EBRAHIM GHARFUI (Cinematographer) – Ghafui worked with Mohsen Makhmalbaf on Kandahar and Samira Makhmalbaf on At 5 in the Afternoon, as well as many other famous Iranian filmmakers. Born in 1960 in Tehran, Ghafuri started in 1978 with other films including The Day I Became a Woman and The Bird Flew from the Cage. MARINA GOLHAHARI (Osama) – Born in Golbahar (part of the Parwan province) in the north of Kabul in 1991, Marina was part of family of 13. With a hardworking father laboring through several jobs, Marina hopes she can continue her quest to be an actress, as she is now starring in another short Afghan film. Supplemental Research: A Brief History of Afghanistan by Dorna Khazeni Introduction Though Afghanistan is known today primarily for the atrocities committed against women by the now deposed Taliban regime (as well as for their destruction of the statues of the Buddha in Bamiyan and their links to Al Qaeda), Afghanistan has a rich 5000-year-old cultural heritage. Some time during the 4th century B.C., the world's largest Buddhas (175 feet by 120 feet) were carved into a cliff at Bamiyan in the central mountains of Afghanistan. Other structures – palaces, mosques and gardens – were built by various rulers over the centuries. The country’s literature is one of the richest in Central Asia, and it is the birthplace of Rumi and a place from which much poetry and philosophy emanated. However, Afghanistan has also had a continual history of wars and strife. Its position along the most important trade routes connecting southern and eastern Asia to Europe and the Middle East made it a coveted piece of land that many nations fought over for centuries – and it is the people of Afghanistan that have suffered the consequences. Landlocked and covered with mountains (mountains make up 75% of the country), the topography of Afghanistan has dictated its social structures. The ethnic people outside of major urban centers (mostly villagers) subsist mainly through herding cattle and live within ethnic groups. They are separated by the mountains surrounding them. These groups generally fail to see themselves as sharing one Afghan identity and rather identify themselves by their ethnicity or clan. The four primary ethnic groups in Afghanistan are the Pashtuns, the Hazara, the Uzbeks, and the Tajiks. The Pashtuns, Sunni Moslems, are by far the most numerous of these ethnic groups. The instability that has characterized the country's history has been in great part a consequence of these ethnic divisions and a lack of success at creating anything resembling a centralized governing body with legitimate authority across the country. Modern History By creating an arbitrary border between Afghanistan and India in the late 19th century (known as The Durand Line), the British, in effect, while not colonizing Afghanistan, created a buffer zone between the Russians and their own interests in India. In doing so, they also applied a solution that suited their needs to the problem of Pashtunistan, a region in dispute between Afghanistan and India. By dividing the region this way, the seeds were sown for what was later to be a flight of Pashtun refugees to what is today Pakistan—there they were trained and eventually returned to Afghanistan as the Taliban. Afghanistan was ruled by Mohammad Zahir Shah from 1933 to 1973 (in 1953 he was ousted by Daud Khan in a coup and then reinstated again in 1963). He ruled cautiously attempting to modernize the country. Daud Khan, who ousted Zahir Shah in 1953 and ruled until 1963, successfully introduced several far-reaching educational and social reforms in the country such as allowing women to wear the veil voluntarily and abolishing purdah (the practice of secluding women from public view). In 1964 Zahir Shah instituted an experiment in constitutional monarchy, but failed to promulgate laws voted in by his parliament. In 1973 another coup deposed Zahir Shah for good. In 1977 the new regime was ousted by a coup, and The Democratic Republic of Afghanistan was born. The coup had been effectuated by an alliance of two opposing left wing factions: the Banner Party and the People Party. Once in power, the People Party quickly established its power over the Banner faction. Purges followed. While the party in power denied being a Soviet puppet government, it attempted to institute Marxist-Leninist programs throughout the country. These were in opposition to the mostly Moslem population’s beliefs and practices. A civil war broke out. In 1979 the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. The Russian occupation and the ensuing civil war added to the harsh conditions experienced by most of the Afghan population. Famine and death by starvation were rampant. Other deaths were a result of the conflicts and fighting. There were also innumerable deaths caused by the myriad landmines strewn all over the country. The casualties multiplied. In 2001 10% of the country's population had died and 30% were refugees to Iran or Pakistan. In the course of the civil war and thereafter, many refugees had fled Afghanistan to Pakistan. Concerned about protecting its own interests in Pashtunistan and believing secular Afghan nationalist resistance movements, once in power, might attempt to dispute the Pashtunistan territory, Pakistan provided training to the mujahideen (those fighting a jihad or holy war) religious activists, large numbers of whom were Pashtun refugees in Pakistan. Although the Russians were ousted in 1989, chaos ensued. Urban neighborhoods and villages were terrorized by warlords who laid claim to them. Women were frequently raped by fighting rabble. A short-lived communist regime was in place that fell in 1992 when a coalition of mujahideen parties formed a government. This, in turn, was ousted in 1996 by a movement based in Kandahar that called itself Taliban. The Taliban quickly established its power over all but a small corner of Afghanistan (which remained under the control of the Northern Alliance). The Afghan people’s utter war-weariness and the Taliban's ability to restore a semblance of order account for the group's ascension to power in Afghanistan. The Taliban were eventually toppled by a coalition of Afghan forces supported by the United States in 2001 after the September 11 attacks and the Taliban's refusal to cooperate in turning over Al Qaeda members to the U.S. The Taliban At the time the Taliban seized power, there was massive instability, crime, and chaos in Afghanistan. Even those who opposed them were at first pleased with the security they instated. Public disarmament and draconian punishments – such as amputating thieves' hands, stoning to death those accused of adultery, and executions – brought back a relative public order in sharp contrast to the chaos prevalent before the Taliban. What followed, however, as a result of the fanatical rule of these fundamentalists, was a tragedy for Afghanistan. The Taliban established the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Its precepts governed every aspect of life, and the tyranny that ensued damaged no one as much as it did women. Prior to the arrival of the Taliban, Afghan women had enjoyed rights equal to men. In the 1960s wearing a veil had been made voluntary. Women found jobs in offices and stores and some were university-educated. While more traditional roles prevailed in villages, in the urban centers there were women working as teachers, doctors and engineers. With the advent of the Taliban, virtually overnight, women were prohibited from working or receiving an education. The burqa – a garment that covers a woman from head to toe with only a grid in the fabric to allow her to look out – was announced as being mandatory, the only acceptable outfit in public for all women at all times. No woman was allowed outside her home unaccompanied by a man. A woman was not to speak to a man unrelated to her and was to face the wall in the presence of any such man. The male population in Afghanistan was decimated because of years of unrest and civil war, the flight of many men as refugees or in search of work to other countries, and the deaths of many others. With many men gone or dead, the Taliban’s decrees rendered day-to-day living impossible for the women left behind. They were in effect being told they must starve to death. Under the circumstances, many women found it preferable to be married to a man who had three or four wives, for at least they could survive. Without a man, they had no hope of subsistence. Polygamy thrived under the Taliban, and was condoned and advocated by them. Over a period of several years, 10,000,000 women were forced to live under burqas. Countless Afghan women – women who had been leading active lives prior to the arrival of the Taliban – committed suicide or were killed by the Taliban during the years of their rule, even for the most minor infractions against the rules laid out by the authorities. All forms of entertainment were banned, as were all images, photographs, paintings, and, of course, films or television. Music was prohibited, as was Western clothing. Men were not allowed to shave their beards; it was considered a crime to shave. Turbans were mandatory for men. These laws were not practiced in other Islamic nations, Sunni or Moslem. The Taliban interpreted the Shari'a or Islamic law to their own liking and administered it to the people of Afghanistan. In the spring of 2001, the Taliban militia used explosives to bring down the soaring statues of the Buddhas at Bamiyan.