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Human Rights Film Series Highlights Treatment of Women under the Taliban Regime
NEW LONDON, N.H., Nov. 9, 2006 – Colby- Sawyer College will present "Osama," a feature film about the Taliban regime's cruelty toward women in Afghanistan. The film is part of the college's Human Rights and Social Justice Film Series.
“Osama” will be presented on Wednesday, Nov. 15, at 7 p.m. in Clements Hall, at the Curtis L. Ivey Science Center. Sponsored by the Cultural Events Committee, the event is free and open to the public. A discussion led by Thea F. Lahti of Breakthrough Consulting will follow the film. This film is not rated.
The film tells the story of three generations of women deeply affected by Taliban rule in Afghanistan. A 12-year-old girl disguises herself as a boy to help her mother and grandmother survive by working in a culture hostile to women.
She embarks on a terrifying journey to keep the Taliban from discovering her true identity. In Afghanistan's first film since the rise and fall of the Taliban, “Osama” portrays the regime's cruelty toward women, who were not allowed to go outside without a male escort and were forced to wear floor-length veiled dresses called burqas.
The film opens with a shot of dozens of desperate Afghan women, dressed in sky-blue burqas, demonstrating for the right to work. They are carrying signs saying, "We are not political. We are widows." That argument is apparently not enough to persuade the Taliban, who are shown forcibly dispersing them with guns and water cannons.
For Afghan women, life during fundamentalist Taliban rule, from 1996 to 2001, was especially hard. Life has become increasingly hopeless for the main character's family, which includes her widowed mother and grandmother. In the dim firelight, the grandmother strokes her granddaughter's head and tells of her plans to cut her granddaughter's hair and dress her as a boy, a boy named Osama, who must go out and find work to support the family.
“If the Taliban recognizes me, they will kill me,” says the girl. Her grandmother urges her to be brave. The grandmother says, “If you do not work, your mother and I will starve.”
Osama is the debut for director Siddiq Barmak, who wrote, produced and edited the film. With a cast of non-professional actors, as well as material and creative help from neighboring Iran, the film was made with about $310,000.
Colby-Sawyer, founded in 1837, is a comprehensive liberal arts college located in the scenic Lake Sunapee Region of central New Hampshire. Students from 25 states and five foreign countries learn in small classes through a select array of programs that integrate the liberal arts and sciences with pre-professional experience.
