
Ten years ago ten Afghan filmmakers – with the assistance of Roslindale’s Community Supported Film (CSFilm) – made ten short documentaries showing the lives of their countrymen and women. The docs provided a ground level view of life in the war ravaged country as individuals began to rebuild.
Now those filmmakers are either refugees, or hiding in Afghanistan.
JP Movie Night showed five of the Afghan made documentaries on December 4th. The event was hosted by CSFilm’s Director, Michael Sheridan. In a very emotional experience, the event included the participation via Zoom of two recent evacuees and the project’s translator and coordinator.
Qasem joined from Iran where he has gone through a horrific smuggling from Afghanistan to Tehran with his six-year-old daughter and mother. It has been a traumatic experience physically and mentally. Qasem is in the terrible situation of not being able to work in Iran and not able to get into Turkey. We are working to try and find other possibilities for Qasem and his family to be given asylum – perhaps to Mexico or Brazil. Qasem said during the event that he does not see a future for Afghanistan now that the youth that had emerged and taken leadership in Afghanistan over the last 20 years have left the country.
Aqeela joined the event from France. The French government evacuated a plane load of Afghan cultural workers on August 24th. Aqeela, with her three sons, was included in this group because of her prominent role as an actress in Afghan cinema and television, her work as a director and for her outspoken work on women and human rights. Aqeela admonished the international community and the United States for not putting more pressure on the Taliban government to honor women and human rights.
Jamal joined the conversation from Canada where he received asylum with the rest of his family in 2020. He said that the return of the Taliban makes those in the diaspora now feel permanently homeless – their cultural and familial homeland is gone.
Contact Community Supported Film if you would like to organize a Screen&Discuss with the Afghan films in your community.
Date and time: Sat, December 4, 2021, 7:00 PM – 9:30 PM EST, Add to calendar
Location: Video Underground, 3203 Washington Street Boston, MA 02130
All attendees will need to be fully vaccinated prior to, and masked during, the screening.

Produced by JP Movie Night
“Building Community, One Movie at a Time”
(617) 863-3392
Twitter: @jpmovienight1
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