"That terror cannot be used only to sell television programs and create morbidity. Let's help them ”

The filmmaker Alba Sotorra, second from the right, together with the women portrayed in her film.

Last Friday, Sahraa Karimi, director of the state film agency Afghan Film and herself a filmmaker, sent an anguished message on social media from the streets of Kabul: “This withdrawal is a betrayal of our people. After 20 years of immense progress for our country, especially for the younger generations, everything can be lost again in this new abandonment ”. Karimi, who has already left the country and is in Kiev (Ukraine), is not only the first woman to direct the Afghan Film, but she also presented her first fiction feature at the 2019 Venice Film Festival -after two previous documentaries- . Entitled

Hava, Maryam, Ayesha

, it focused on three pregnant women who take charge of their destiny and denounced "the silence of the media, governments and humanitarian organizations."

On Tuesday, another filmmaker, Shahrbanoo Sadat, who was born in Tehran but grew up in a town in central Afghanistan, also told

The Hollywood Reporter

from Kabul: “We never thought that everything would happen so quickly.

You are all the time hearing that the Taliban have taken control of one site, or are entering another, and you lose perspective of what the real danger is. "

Sadat is the director of

Wolf and Sheep

(2016), awarded at the Directors' Fortnight in Cannes, and of

The Orphanage

(2019), the first two parts of a pentalogy based on the memoirs of her friend Anwar Hashimi.

Filmmaker Sahraa Karimi in an interview after being evacuated from Kabul.

On video, images of Karimi scared after the arrival of the Taliban.

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"If the West is going to ignore someone, it will be Afghan children and women," claims actress Charo López

At 31, Sadat explains: “If I survive this and have the opportunity to make more films, my cinema will be forever changed.

I feel like I'm observing an injustice and witnessing something really horrible, and I just need to save it, remember it, and put it in movies later, to share it with the world.

If there is one good thing about this, it is the energy that comes out of people from anger.

I can make films, others write, others organize the future.

We have to do something with that force. "

The film with the most projection that emerged from post-iban Afghanistan - and also the first shot in freedom - was

Osama

(2003), by Siddiq Barmak, the misadventures of a girl who disguises herself as a child in order to find work during the Taliban dictatorship, which won the Golden Globe for best foreign-language film.

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Spanish cinema has illustrated the pain of women under Islamic fundamentalism. Juan Antonio Moreno showed in

Boxing for Freedom

(2015) the struggle of the Rahimi sisters to develop their career as boxers and to participate in the 2012 Olympic Games; Silvia Venegas, co-writer of the film, and Moreno met the Rahimis when they were filming another film in Afghanistan,

Life Beyond the Battle

(2011). For her part, Alba Sotorra, an expert documentary filmmaker in the area, has shot several films about women in the Middle East: either about the Kurdish guerrillas who decided to reconquer the territory of northern Syria from ISIS

(Commander Arian),

good about western women who left their countries to join ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in

The Return: Life After ISIS

. In addition, in 2015 he released

Game Over

(2015), about a Spanish, an expert video game player, who went to Afghanistan as a sniper.

Faced with the return now of the Taliban to Kabul, the reaction of the people of the cinema and of Spanish culture in general has been immediate. Last weekend, journalists Gabriela Cañas, Rosa Montero, Soledad Gallego-Díaz and Maruja Torres promoted the manifesto

Open the doors to Afghanistan and

women Afghans

,

an appeal to the international community that has already collected more than 60,000 signatures. The list features prominent names in literature, film and the arts, many of them women.

The Argentine writer Claudia Piñeiro explains to EL PAÍS the reasons why she decided to join this call: “For some time, women have been very clear that feminism is a global movement that protects us and knows no borders. Where there are women at risk, there we will be trying to contribute and demand solutions. For this reason, the call of the Spanish colleagues to sign the manifesto was immediately received with the urgency it deserved. And although today it is open for signature by anyone who wants to join us, not just women, the origin was clearly the wake-up call to the danger in which we believe Afghan women and girls are facing the Taliban regime. I believe, of course, in the right of each people to choose the government they want, but the limit is human rights.And that is why I believe that the international community should not ignore what is happening in Afghanistan and arbitrate the peaceful means of monitoring this situation, but also of help and protection to those who are today the victims. The UN, for example, is a body that can do a lot in this regard. But we also need a strong commitment from top political leaders that Afghan women will not be tolerated returning to an almost medieval rule of law. Until today, some of these leaders have been more concerned about the possible arrival of Afghan immigrants to their countries than about the situation of women and girls trapped in that regime. It is to be hoped that they will assume what I believe is also their responsibility ”.

The Argentine writer, Claudia Piñeiro, at her home in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Palermo.SILVINA FRYDLEWSKY

The Spanish author Elvira Lindo is another of the signers. “An international solidarity movement of women is necessary to protect the most vulnerable beings, creating a cordon so that they can go out into a world in which they are not threatened, as happened with the Spanish Civil War. It is urgent to save the lives of these people, to do something productive. The entire Afghan population is vulnerable, but we know that women are much more vulnerable. It terrifies me to see the images of people running in terror at the Kabul airport. They are all men and I ask myself: 'Where are the women?' The letter is a way of putting pressure on democratic governments and raising awareness in countries that can help these women, many of them with minor children, to get out of there and have protection.It is only the first step towards understanding that the situation is unacceptable. Afghanistan is not a country of women, it has to be left without women. The international community has reacted with stupor. The fact that the United States has come out shotgun, recognizing that they have nothing to do now, has to lead us to reflect on how are the interventions in these third countries, complicated territories, where the waters move and then leave ”.where the waters move and then leave ”.where the waters move and then leave ”.

For the Colombian writer Piedad Bonnett, “it cannot be possible that after having seen how the Taliban treated women while they ruled Afghanistan, destroying their dignity and rights, the world today allows this to be repeated.

International pressure has to be as strong and determined as the cause of Afghan women merits, today at risk of being ostracized and at risk of annihilation in which they once stood.

An even more painful situation today than before, if one takes into account the fundamental freedoms and rights that, in an environment by nature adverse, they had already conquered ”.

The Colombian writer Piedad Bonnett.julián lineros / EL PAÍS

The poet María José Martín, better known as Ajo, points out: “We have ignored the Afghans, and in general the women who are in a different stage from the Westerners. A certain feminine cultural world that was settling in Afghanistan is going to disappear at a stroke. I am still perplexed with the news with the speed of the facts ”. Like Huete, he hopes that Spain "should give Afghan women a voice and asylum, that there be a step forward from the Government."

Among the signatories there are also many actresses from Spanish cinema.

Charo López feels deeply pessimistic: “My feeling is that we are very at the beginning, and of course if the West is going to ignore someone it will be the Afghan children and women.

It is very difficult for me to tell the Spanish Government what to do, but I do know that we cannot remain in debates, we have to do ”.

López warns: “We see those women in pain, howling in fear, and that terror cannot be used only to sell television programs and create morbidity.

Let's help them ”.

"The letter is a way of forcing the situation so that it does not turn into hell", points out Aitana Sánchez-Gijón

Also actress Aitana Sánchez-Gijón explains her adherence: “The Taliban regime has previously demonstrated the level of repression and mutilation of all rights against women. It is a living imprisonment. They are forced to live locked behind a wall. Women are in mortal danger. The Taliban cruelly and sadistically curtail women's rights. I do not know if something will be achieved or not with the signed letter, as nothing is achieved is by being silent. You have to raise your voice and shake consciences and take the debate to a political level to find solutions. The letter is a way to force the situation so that it does not turn into hell. Civil society has the ability to pressure governments to act.The important thing is that international institutions create this humanitarian corridor to welcome all those who have to leave because their lives are in danger ”.

The actress Aitana Sánchez Gijón, at the Café Gijón, Madrid, in March.Samuel Sánchez / EL PAÍS

Belén Rueda warns: “You cannot lower your guard.

What does not have any route is to do nothing, that is why the signing of the letter is positive.

It is true that we are a small group in the international world, but things are done step by step, bit by bit.

Very specific things are required in the letter, such as the opening of borders and respect for certain laws.

Everything that happens to women under the Taliban is terrifying.

If an international response is obtained, it is possible that the Taliban regime will feel the pressure not to violate the rights of a population of men and women who are going to suffer enormous repression ”.

Actress Anabel Alonso, who has actively expressed her concern on social networks, urgently calls for action: “Governments can do things, demand, negotiate. What is happening to women in Afghanistan is wild. It is impossible not to claim the rights of some human beings. I really miss the absence of men in this initiative. How can we allow a girl to be prevented from studying, going out on the street if she is not accompanied by a boy? In what human head is it possible that a sick woman cannot be touched by a doctor? When I shared the letter on Twitter, I found a reaction of hatred, ridicule and incomprehensible contempt. Surely no one had read it. What is useless is doing nothing. Signatures are collected so that people are informed and aware, regardless of your ideology, sex or gender.What is savage is not supporting that initiative. Words are crowding me. It is so significant that there are no women in the Kabul airport images. This makes it clear that children and men have it very bad, but much worse women whose hours are counted ”.

More information

• The return of the Taliban is catastrophic for women

• Let's not let this happen to Afghan women

Argentine actress Mercedes Morán explains that she has signed the letter "because she believes in the power of the feminist movement and of women when they shake hands with each other, regardless of borders." And she adds: “The particular situation of women and girls will be that of a life restricted in rights, without freedom, unfair, unequal, medieval. The feminist movement has shown that many things can be changed thanks to the particular way in which it has approached many issues in recent years. We cannot remain silent, but neither can we be asked to achieve what institutions, countries and organizations that have much more power and responsibility over international politics than we do.Some governments and institutions have been more concerned about the Afghans who may come to their respective countries fleeing this horror than about what those who stay there will live. The UN and other international organizations have monitoring tools on human rights violations that they must put into operation immediately to assist and protect Afghan girls and women, both those who want to leave the country and those who will continue to live there. ”.

In general, there is discouragement: “It is a shame for the entire West. What have two decades of America been worth there for? They probably should have invested more in education or health than in arms, with the intention of improving Afghanistan ”, asks the film producer Cristina Huete. And on the role of Spain he reflects: “We should do a lot. Help Afghans to leave their country, let's fight for them. And we cannot forget that they are not the only ones, although now they are the priority ”.