The New Indian Express News

Turkish filmmaker says 'Cinema Jazireh' inspired by Afghan women who erase themselves to survive

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Imagine a situation where all that one can do is watch helplessly as tragedy unfolds. Afghanistan, where beauty and brutality co-exist, has turned into a world where helplessness and hopelessness live under a reign of terror. A reign where a mother, to find her lost seven-year-old son, must disguise herself as a man because being a woman means not even next to nothing but nothing itself. Laylas struggle begins this way in Cinema Jazireh , a reality check from Turkish filmmaker Gozde Kural about the Taliban-controlled land. The Turkish-Afghan-Iranian co-production, among International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK)s picks this year, has bagged several laurels the Ecumenical Jury Commendation at Karlovy Vary, the Best Director at Mostra de Valencia, and nominated for the Crystal Globe at the Torino Film Festival but has also invited criticism and a lack of support from Gozdes motherland. The portrayal of the protagonist in the movie is backed by Gozdes experience in Afghanistan and her fears as she encountered the literal absence of women in public spaces. Laylas search for her son after her family is massacred leads her to tread these forbidden paths, to dress as a man so that she can remain unnoticed. Her tryst leads her to another child stranded in a place where boys dress as women for Bache Bazi, a dark world where boys are used for pleasure. The idea of impersonation emerged organically from reality. In Afghanistan, gender is not only an identity that determines where you can go, how you move, and whether you are seen at all, says Gozde. Her impersonation theme reminded of Majid Majidis Baran, where the protagonists impersonation was also to remain unseen. But Gozde claims the situations are different. While films like Baran resonate thematically, my inspiration came from lived stories of women who temporarily erase themselves to survive, she notes. Cinema Jazireh is an attempt to question not only what we see, but the invisible structures that produce it. When gender is so much a question, resisting voices becomes a dire need, Gozde feels. For me, resistance begins as a human response and then transforms into one that is concrete and political, both as a woman and as a filmmaker. When your body, your gaze, and your voice are directly targeted, telling stories is no longer a choice. This film, for her, was not about achievement but a way of bearing witness and taking responsibility. Making such films requires astute listening and a language rooted in empathy. In this sense, the film emerged as a space that opens from a personal act of resistance toward a collective memory, she says. As a filmmaker, Gozde finds Afghanistan to be a place where reality exceeds fiction. The challenge is not to dramatise but to distil, to find a human story within the overwhelming political violence. Unlike in Iran, where restrictions produced a powerful cinematic language, in Afghanistan, the tragedy is more absolute. Cinema, in this context, becomes an act of witnessing, not offering solutions maybe, but sure not to be silent, she remarks. Bulut Reyhanoglu, the producer of Cinema Jazireh , feels that despite the grimness, Afghan cinema is alive. Yet such persistence cannot survive on its own, he says. He stressed on the need for global backing from international festivals, saying they are not mere exhibition forums but spaces where Afghan women can hope to be heard and be visible, where they will not have to hide from life to live.