A trailer has arrived for Sahraa Karimi’s history-making feature debut. “Hava, Maryam, and Ayesha” tells the story of three women at major crossroads in life. The trio are pregnant.
Set to make its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival September 6, the drama marks “the first independent Afghan movie entirely shot in Kabul with cast and crew living in Afghanistan,” Deadline writes.
“Hava, Maryam, and Ayesha” is named after its three protagonists, women struggling to have their voices heard and to change their lives. Hava (Arezoo Ariapoor) is living with her father and mother-in-law. The source hints that “her only joy is talking to the baby in her belly” and “no one cares about [her].”
“I don’t think there’s anything left between us,” Maryam (Fereshta Afshar), a news reporter, tells her unfaithful husband. It’s on the the road to divorce that she finds out she’s pregnant. “I’m not a model or hostess of silly shows,” she says, seemingly trying to convince him of the importance of her career.
Ayesha’s (Hasiba Ebrahimi) fiancé admits he thought she’d “never want him” after refusing to marry him for years. The 18-year-old bride-to-be is only getting married to her cousin because she’s pregnant and the baby’s father disappeared after she told him.
Karimi, who has helmed over 30 shorts and docs, said that, as a female filmmaker from Afghanistan, she aimed “to be the storyteller of my fellow countrywomen who seek to change their lives in a traditional society. By traveling to many Afghan cities and villages, I found real stories from inside my country about such women as Hava, Maryam, and Ayesha,” she explained.
Other women-directed films screening at Venice this year include Haifaa Al-Mansour’s “The Perfect Candidate” and Shannon Murphy’s “Baby Teeth.” The former centers on young female physician who decides to run in the municipal council election and the latter tells the story of a couple who discover their teenage daughter is dating a drug dealer.
