India to screen ‘Hava, Maryam, Ayesha’

The 2020 Bengaluru International Film Festival (BIFFES) in India has scheduled to screen ‘Hava, Maryam, Ayesha’.

Directed by Sahra Karimi, the 86-minute film will go on contemporary world cinema section of the Indian event.

The film is a narrative of three women’s lives from different social backgrounds that are facing a big challenge in their lives living in Kabul.

Hava, a traditional pregnant woman whom no one cares about, is living with her father and mother-in-law. Her only joy is talking to the baby in her belly.

Maryam, an educated TV news reporter, is about to get a divorce from her unfaithful husband, but finds out she is pregnant.

Ayesha, an 18-year-old girl accepts to marry her cousin because she is pregnant by her boyfriend who disappears after hearing the news.

Each of them has to solve her problem by herself for the first time.

Arezou Ariapour, Fereshta Afshar, and Hasiba Ebrahimi play the main roles of the flick.

“As a female filmmaker from Afghanistan, I promised myself to be the storyteller of my fellow countrywomen who seek to change their lives in a traditional society. By travelling to many Afghan cities and villages, I found real stories from inside my country about women such as Hava, Maryam, and Ayesha. They are trying not to give in to the imposed patriarchal society. Their decision is a form of resistance to their predetermined life. My goal is to narrate the lives of the women who haven’t had a voice for many years, and they are now ready to change their fate,” Karimi said.

Karimi, the Afghan female film director of the flick, took her first steps as an artist in Iran with filmmakers’ works such as Hamid Jebeli’s ‘White Dream’. She then moved abroad to study cinema and filmmaking.

The BIFFES allows cineastes to showcase their films and to exchange experiences during the event.

This edition of the fest is slated for February 26-March 4, 2020.

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MG/AG