Shakiba Adil (Kabul/Outokumpu)
The filmmaker was born in Kabul in 1975. She graduated from the Malalai
School. After 2001, she hosted a children's programme on Kabul TV and worked
as a camerawoman with the media organization AINA. In 2004, she emigrated
to Finland, where she completed training in the multicultural programme
Basaari of the YLE television station. She is currently studying radio,
television and documentary film production at North Carelian College.
Latif Ahmadi (Kabul)
The director born in 1950 in Kabul finished his studies to become a certified
engineer in 1975 and founded the film production firm Ariana in the same
year. He has since then produced a number of advertising films and worked
as a cameraman. In the early 1980s, he worked for Afghan television. In
1982 he produced the feature film Farar ("Escape") and
in 1986 Parandaha-ye Mohajer ("Birds of Passage"). From
1986 to 1992 he was the director of the state-run film production company
Afghan Films, and from 1992 to 1994 the cultural attaché to Tajikistan.
He has been living in Afghanistan again since 2002 and was again appointed
the director of Afghan Films in 2004.
Alema (Kabul)
The philosopher was born in Kabul in 1964, and lived in Leipzig (Germany)
between 1983 and 1994 where she studied philosophy. 1994 she received a
PhD in Philosophy on The relationship between Afghanistan and Germany
between 1919 and 1929. In 1988 she joined the Committee for Women's
Political Participation. Between 1995 and 1996 she conducted scientific
research on Afghanistan between the two World Wars 1914-1945, based on archive
material at the institute Zentrum Moderner Orient in Munich/Berlin. Since
2002 she works with the Deutscher Entwicklungsdienst (DED) in Kabul as a
consultant to further democracy and since 2008 as coordinator for peace
building (ziviler Friedensdienst).
Khaleq Alil (Kabul)
He completed his studies in religious law at the University of Kabul at
the beginning of the 1970s and then studied to become a film director at
the state film academy in Moscow (WIGK). For five years he was president
of the state film institute Afghan Films and shot a number of documentary
films and three feature films in Afghanistan. He is currently living in
the Ukraine.
Nacir Alqas (Kassel)
The director, who was born in Kabul in 1956, completed his studies to become
a film director. He worked as a director and actor with Afghan Films and
Afghan TV. He also hosted and produced numerous television shows. After
an assassination attempt on him he emigrated with his family to Germany
in 1996 and has been living in Kassel since then. In 2006 he co-produced
the film Zendan.
Manizha Bakhtari (Kabul)
The writer was born in Afghanistan. She spent many years in exile in Pakistan
alongside her well-known poet and writer father. She has a degree in literature
and journalism and teaches at the University of Kabul. She has published
extensively and is now head of the administrative department of the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs.
Rakhshan Bani-Etemad (Tehran)
The director was born in 1954 in Tehran, she studied to become a film director
at the University of Dramatic Arts (FDA) in Tehran and worked from 1973
on as assistant director, reporter and manager for Iranian television. From
1979 to 1986 she shot a series of short documentary films. In 1988 she completed
her first feature film Kharej az Mahdudeh ("Off the Limits")
- a satire on Iranian bureaucracy. For Nargess she received the
award for best director at the Fadjr Film Festival 1992 as the first woman
ever. In her films, Bani-Etemad repeatedly deals with tabooed topics
such as poverty, crime, impossible love, and social repression. Her film
Rusari abi ("The Blue-veiled") from 1995 was awarded
the Bronze Leopard at the film festival in Locarno. Among her further films
are Banoo-ye Ordibehesht ("May Lady") 1998, Zir-e
Poost-e Shahr ("Under the Skin of the City") 2000 and Ruzegar-e
ma ("Our Times") 2002.
She is currently working on a new feature film in the border region between
Afghanistan and Iran.
Elfe Brandenburger (Berlin)
The filmmaker participated in the artists' group minimal club, which produced
theatre and video projects as well as books and magazines. Since 1985, she
has also been working as a film editor. Her video works, which were in part
produced in cooperation projects with Mano Wittmann, were shown at various
venues and in different contexts. She co-directed Passing the Rainbow
which evolved out of the collaboration with Sandra Schäfer on the short
film The Making of a Demonstration.
Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (Liège)
The two brothers were both born in the 1950s in Liège, Belgium. They
studied drama and philosophy at the Art Academy Brussels, and write, produce
and direct their films together.
The Dardennes achieved their first major success with La Promesse
("The Promise") in 1996. As creators of intensely naturalistic
films about lower class life in Belgium, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne have
created a body of work since then which places them clearly at the fore
of contemporary Belgian cinema and among the world's most critically respected
filmmakers as well. With La Promesse (1996), Rosetta (1999),
Le Fils ("The Son"/ 2002), and L'Enfant ("The
Child"/ 2005), the Dardennes' films are stark but modest portrayals
of young people at the fringes of society - migrants, the unemployed, the
inhabitants of shelters.
Both Rosetta and L'Enfant were awarded the Palme d'Or
at the Cannes Film Festival, the only two Belgian films ever to earn the
honor.
Kelly Dolak (New York)
The independent documentary filmmaker teaches at Ramapo College in New Jersey.
She has produced three short films: You make me (1998), Bound
rewound (1998) and Purse (2000). She started her cinematographic
work with the show Behind the screen, which was broadcast on AMC.
Forugh Farrokhzad (Tehran)
The poetess was born 1935 into a middle-class family in Tehran. She married
at sixteen, gave birth to a son at eighteen, and was divorced before her
twentieth birthday. Farrokhzad relinquished her son to her ex-husband's
family in order to focus on her poetry and to follow her independent life
style.
The modern Iranian poetess Forugh Farrokhzad virtually "opened the
windows" of Iranian poetry to real relationships and the real world.
Her frank presentation of feelings about loving, sexual relationships was
revolutionary. 1959 Farrokhzad went to England to study film production.
Back in Iran, she had her first experiences in editing a film called Yek
Atash ("A Fire"), photographed by Golestan's brother Shahrokh.
In 1962, Farrokhzad and three colleagues from Golestan Films travelled to
Tabriz and in twelve days filmed Khaneh siah ast ("The House
is black"). In the age of 32 she died during a car accident.
Gulaley Habib (Kabul)
The journalist was born in Kabul. She worked for three decades as a history
teacher. She has been a journalist with many publications and headed the
Shafagh journal for six years. She wrote a column named Women
the real losers of war in the magazine Kabulistan. She has
authored Women on the path towards freedom. She is editor-in-chief
of the bi-monthly Dunya-e zan (World of women) and deputy of the
party Taraghi Vatan.
Shafiqa Habibi (Kabul)
The journalist has a B.A. in journalism from the University of Kabul and
is a well-known news journalist at the national Radio and Television of
Afghanistan (RTA). She has been awarded national and international prizes
for courage in journalism during the Taleban regime. She co-founded the
New Afghanistan Women's Association and the Association for Women Journalists.
She has also headed the Committee for Women's Political Participation and
is member of the Commission for Information and Communications of UNESCO
Afghanistan.
Nooria Haqnigar (Kabul)
The engineer with a degree from the Kabul Polytechnic started political
activities at a very young age and spent three years in prison during the
rule of the Democratic People’s Party. She headed the education and
dissemination department of the Ministry of Women's Affairs. She is now
deputy of the Party for Liberty and the Committee for Women's Political
Participation.
Mina Hosseini (Kabul)
The student is finishing her studies in high school and is one of the most
active members of the younger generation involved in social and cultural
activities in Kabul. Born in Iran where her parents relocated themselves
as refugees, Hosseini has been working with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
and has worked as a journalist in Kabul.
Amina Jafari (Kabul)
In 2004 the actress and director participated in the girls' theatre group
in Kabul that performed didactical plays calling for women and men to vote.
She plays the leading part in Rushany ("Lightness") and
in 2004 she shot her documentary Zanan va Sinema ("Women and
Cinema").
Azra Jafari (Nili)
The women activist was born 1978 in Mashhad (Iran) where her Afghan parents
relocated themselves as refugees. She established and managed an elementary
school for the Afghan refugees in a refugees' cultural center in Mashhad.
From 1998 to 2000 she was editor in chief of the cultural social magazine
Farhang. 2001 she joined the Emergency Loya Jirga in Kabul. She
worked from 2002 to 2003 for the Equal Rights Association in Kabul. In 2007
she graduated at IHS (Institute of Health Science in Kabul) in midwifery.
In January 2008 she joined the organization Armanshahr/OPEN ASIA as head
of the section Gender and Rights. Since November 2008 Azra Jafari is mayor
of Nili in Daikundi Province and the first women mayor in Afghanistan. Also
in 2008 she published the handbook I am a working woman on the
rights of Afghan women in the labor market and labor laws.
Guissou Jahangiri (Paris/Kabul)
The women’s activist was born in Tehran and raised in France. She
has a doctoral degree (DEA) in political sociology and strategic studies
and worked as a journalist with the Courrier International and as a consultant
with the UN. She co-founded OPEN ASIA/Armanshahr in 1995, an organization
working towards democracy and peace building and a culture of human rights
in Central Asia. She has headed OPEN ASIA/Armanshahr since then.
Sharifa Khanam (Pudukkottai)
The women activist lives and works in the Tamil city of Pudukkottai in India.
In 1987 she founded STEPS. Sharifa Khanam has made it her task to build
up a Muslim community center for women that includes a prayer room, a research
and training center dedicated to Muslim law, and an office coordinating
educational issues and jobs. STEPS offers a full-time center dealing with
violence, work with women, the right to health and public security. Sharifa
Khanam was a member of various initiatives such as the Tamil Nadu Women’s
Network and the Tamil Nadu Women’s Coordination Committee. Today,
Sharifa Khanam coordinates a large network of Muslim women in the state
of Tamil Nadu.
Marzieh Mortazi Langroudi (Tehran)
The activist is an expert in the field of women’s studies in Iran.
She holds a doctoral degree (DEA) in political sociology and strategic studies
and worked as a journalist with the Courrier International and as a consultant
with the UN. She is one of the founders of Mothers for peace and
also a member of the management committee of the Society for Protecting
Prisoner's Rights in Iran. Mortazi Langroudi's activities center around
removing all sorts of discrimination against women in Iran. She has published
several articles on the subject of women’s rights in Iran. Mortazi
Langroudi belongs to the progressive religious intellectual movement in
Iran.
Kim Longinotto (London)
The British documentary filmmaker studies camera and direction at the national
film and television academy Beaconsfield, where she shot, among others,
the film Theatre Girls about a hostel for homeless women. In 1986
she founded the production firm Twentieth Century Vixen together with Claire
Hunt. Among the films she produced is Hidden Faces with and about
women in Egypt. Together with Jano Williams she shot the film Shinjuku
Boys in 1995 on three women in Tokyo living as men. With Ziba Mir-Hosseini
she made the two films Divorce Iranian Style (1998) and Runaway
(2001). Her latest film Sisters in Law (2005) deals with two female
judges in Cameroon and received several awards at the Film Festival in Cannes.
Ziba Mir-Hosseini (London/Tehran)
The Iranian anthropologist examines gender issues in rural and urban Iran
as well as in Morocco. Since the revolution in 1979, she has done research
on family courts in Tehran and followed debates on family law related to
themes of gender. This led to the book Marriage on trial; a study of family
law in Iran and Morocco, which in turn resulted in the film Divorce
Iranian Style, produced with Kim Longinotto in 1998. In 2001 she again
shot a film together with Longinotto titled Runaway. The film is
about young girls in a Tehran children's home which temporarily serves as
a refuge from domestic abuse, forced marriages and other conflicts. Further
publications include: Feminism and the Islamic Republic: Dialogues with
the Ulema (1999), Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for
Reform (2006, with Richard Tapper).
Wazhmah Osman (New York)
The independent documentary filmmaker did her master's degree in Middle
East Studies at New York University. She worked as a film technician, film
advisor and curator at the Millennium Film Workshops and at Cooper Union.
In 2002 she shot her film Buried alive: Women of Afghanistan under Taliban
and in 1999 In the I's. She is currently writing her doctoral thesis.
Roya Sadat (Herat)
The director was born in 1981 and studied politics in Herat. She is the
author of two short films and hosted several contributions to the public
television programme Woman and Society. Se Noqta is the first longer
feature film she has directed. She is currently working in Kabul with Tolo
TV on the serial Razhaie en Khaneh ("The secrets of this house")
and on her second feature film.
Saba Sahar (Kabul)
The actress, filmmaker and policewoman stood on the stage of the Kabul theatre
for the first time in 1986. In 1989 she was trained to become a director
at the production firm Shafaq Film. She later studied at the art faculty
of Kabul University. Saba Sahar has performed as an actress in numerous
artistic film productions and plays. During the time of the Taliban reign,
she lived in Pakistan. After the Taliban regime was toppled, she returned
to Kabul and was trained to become a policewoman. In 2002 she founded her
own production firm Saba Film. She shot her first film in 2004 with Ghafar
Zalan: the action feature Qanun ("The Law"). Two years
later she produced her new film Nejat ("Rescue").
Diana Saqeb (Kabul)
The young Afghan filmmakers spent 26 years of her life in Tehran and has
now been living in Kabul again for a year. She is a member of the artists'
group CACA-Kabul. She had previously completed her studies to become a film
director at the art academy in Tehran.
Her first documentary film 25 Darsad ("25 Percent") deals
with six female members of parliament and their difficulties and efforts
in everyday life.
Sandra Schäfer (Berlin)
The filmmaker and curator of film programmes lives and works in Berlin.
She studied art, politics and sociology in Kassel, London and Karlsruhe.
She has made repeated visits to Kabul and Tehran since 2007 to work together
with Elfe Brandenburger on the documentary film Passing the Rainbow
and do research for the film festival Kabul/Teheran: 1979ff. She curated
film series on Afghanistan and Tehran in Belfast, Lüneburg, Karlsruhe,
and Berlin, and is co-editor of the book Kabul/ Teheran 1979ff: Filmlandschaften,
Städte unter Stress und Migration, published in 2006 by b_books, Berlin.
Videos, films and video installations (choice): The Making of a Demonstration
(2004), A Country's new Dawn (2001) and The invisible Services
(2000).
Kamran Shirdel (Tehran)
The documentary filmmaker studied architecture and film in Rome. His work
was strongly influenced by the Italian neorealists. After returning to Iran
in 1965, he founded the first film club allowed by the state together with
other filmmakers. That same year he shot his first documentary film. It
was followed by a social-critical trilogy, which he was only able to complete
in the 1980s. In 2000 he founded the Kish Documentary Film Festival, which
since 2006 has a new director due to political disputes on the island of
Kish. He is currently preparing his new film Solitude Opus No2.
Nazifa Zakizada (Kabul)
The filmmaker was born in Afghanistan in 1984. She left her country due
to the civil wars and lived in Tehran for 20 years. After taking her school-leaving
exam, she returned to Afghanistan in 2003 and worked together with her brother
Sayed Mussa Zakizada as a set-assistance for the Royan Artistic Center.
Her film Edame Rah ("Continuing the way") was made in
2006 during a documentary film workshop organised by the French film initiative
Atelier Varan in Kabul.
