Afghan director Shahrbanoo Sadat has secured German financing for “No Good Men,” with Berlin-based Amerikafilm joining the director’s long-awaited romantic comedy set inside a Kabul newsroom during the democratic era, before the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.
The project, produced by Katja Adumit of Danish-German company Adumit Films in partnership with Parisian company La Fabrica Nocturna and Norwegian company Motlis, is set to be screened by Sadat at the Venice Gap Finance Market, which runs from August 30 to September 1.
“There Are No Good Men” is the first romantic comedy by an Afghan director, and tells the story of a young photographer (played by Gawga Taban) who falls in love with a married TV reporter (Mohammad Anwar Hashimi) twice her age after discovering that her husband is cheating on her. While the forbidden love unfolds inside the newsroom, the film also depicts the dangerous work of journalists in Kabul, as well as the absurdity of daily life in the city at the time.
Sadat, who was forced to flee the Afghan capital with her family in 2021 after Taliban forces overran the city, said she has not lost focus on her long-awaited fourth feature film, which she began developing with co-writer Anwar Hashemi before emigrating to Germany.
“The project hasn't changed, but my intention to make the film has changed,” the director said. diverse“Because now I'm not just making a romantic comedy, I'm also making a historical film about this democratic era that's gone.” [in Afghanistan] “And I witnessed it.”
The third part of the planned quintet, based on Hashemi’s autobiographical work, “There Are No Good Men,” follows Sadat’s directorial debut, “The Wolf and the Sheep,” which won the Grand Prix at the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in 2016, and “The Orphanage,” which screened at the Directors’ Fortnight in 2019.
The Wolf and the Sheep won the Directors' Fortnight Award at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.
Courtesy of Virginie Surdage Lighter
Sadat described There Are No Good Men as a “political romantic comedy” that addresses the complex reality of Afghan women during the country’s short-lived democratic experiment, when women, despite the promises of that era, had “no rights and no freedom,” except for “the middle class living in a bubble.”
“I talk about love, but this is love that happens in the context of Afghanistan,” she said. “It is impossible for me to talk about love without addressing women’s issues. It is impossible for me to talk about love without talking about politics in Afghanistan.”
However, the director said the film tells a “universal” story “because love happens everywhere, and sexism and patriarchy happen everywhere too. I'm just showing you the Afghan version.”
Before the sudden collapse of the Afghan government in August 2021 and the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. troops, Sadat said she was ready to start a new chapter in her life. She had just turned 30 and moved into a new apartment in Kabul when she began developing the script for her fourth feature film.
“I wanted to make this romantic comedy at that time because I was really fascinated by people’s daily lives, and I really wanted to capture the experience of living in Kabul from [my] “Perspective,” she said.
The fall of Kabul and her family's dramatic escape to Europe forced Sadat to rethink her approach—”If I don't live in Kabul, then I make a film about everyday life in Kabul, it makes no sense at all,” she said—but after finding her footing in Germany, she returned to the project with renewed commitment.
Afghanistan is [not just] “Geography. I am Afghanistan myself,” she said. “Wherever I go, I am the country. My films are the country. Now I am filming Kabul in Germany. This is power,” she added. “I have regained my power.”
Sadat fled Kabul after the fall of the Afghan government in 2021.
Vera de Cook
Sadat, who now lives in Hamburg, is seeking to raise around €400,000 ($446,000) to finance the €2.9 million ($3.2 million) film, and plans to begin principal photography in late September. Filming will take place in Berlin, Brandenburg and Hamburg, where production designer Pegah Gamlampour and her team will recreate Kabul on the streets of Germany.
Sadat admitted to being frustrated with European financiers, many of whom she said were slow to embrace the film. “It’s really hard for people to understand the importance of the film,” she said. “If I had made a political film in a more straightforward way, talking about women, politics, the Taliban, and the evacuation, it would have been much easier for people to understand the purpose of the film.”
“This is another Taliban in Europe for me,” she continued. “They tell me you’re not allowed to do this kind of content, but only this kind of content. I think this is my right. This is my right as an artist coming from Afghanistan to make romantic comedy, because our people deserve to laugh too.”
