Two more women-directed titles just entered the International Feature Film Oscar race. A press release announced that Afghanistan submitted Sahraa Karimi’s “Hava, Maryam, Ayesha” for consideration and The Hollywood Reporter confirmed that Belarus selected Anastasiya Miroshnichenko’s “Debut.”
“Hava, Maryam, Ayesha” is Karimi’s feature debut and tells the story of three Afghan women from different social backgrounds living in Kabul. All of them are pregnant and dealing with trying circumstances. The drama made its world premiere at Venice Film Festival earlier this month and will make its North American premiere at Mill Valley Film Festival in October.
“The film goes beyond the cliché ways the world views Afghan women,” Karimi told us in a soon-to-be published interview. “I am a woman from Afghanistan. I live here and see the everyday lives of Afghan women. I had a chance to travel to many remote villages inside Afghanistan, and I listened to many stories. I understood that it doesn’t matter whether you are from remote village or big a city — we live in a country where the majority of people do not believe in any kind of women’s rights, where the society is strongly anti-women, and where the patriarchal society and its traditions limit women for different reasons,” she explained.
“Debut” tells the story of “11 female convicts who volunteered to take part in a theater play,” THR details. The doc, which screened at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival, “explores the soulless atmosphere of a women’s penitentiary, questioning the rationality of long prison terms for women with children in Belarus.”
Miroshnichenko’s last doc, “Crossroads,” won the audience award at the Warsaw International Film Festival.
Other features in the running for the International Feature Film Oscar include May el-Toukhy’s “Queen of Hearts,” a drama about a lawyer who jeopardizes her career and family by having an affair with her teenage stepson, and Lila Avilés’ “The Chambermaid,” a portrait of a maid working in a luxurious hotel in Mexico City. The former is representing Denmark and the latter Mexico.
