Skip to content The state of women’s rights today is in few places as catastrophic as in present-day Afghanistan. Since the Taliban captured Kabul in August 2021, just weeks before American troops withdrew, every news story from the country has sounded like a report from hell. Amid the persecution of ethno-religious minorities and the deepening humanitarian and economic crisis, what human rights organizations continue to cry out is that “women and girls have been deprived of almost all their fundamental rights”.
Among recent documentaries on Afghanistan, Zainab Entezar’s work is a rare weight. then They filmed the voice of freedom (2024), which follows two sisters who dare to protest against the regime, its sophomore feature 771 days It tells a bigger story. Screened at G. Hlava’s screenings section, this is a radical participatory documentary in which the director brings together her own struggles of resistance with a community of women fighting back through cameras, protest and sisterhood.
The film cuts before its images begin, as the opening title comes almost apologetically: “Some parts may not have full quality due to the difficult circumstances at the time of its creation.” The next headline tells us that the director’s book written by a woman has been banned by the Taliban and that the actress in her short film has been shot dead. Those first few seconds already provide an uncomfortable reminder of how the film industry caters to those who tell the most urgent stories. nevertheless 771 days It arrives as a vital and terrifying account of women’s resistance in a state built on their erasure.
Feminism on its fear
Opening on September 26, 2023, on day 771, with her family evacuated, the film flashes back to the first months of Taliban rule, with unsteady phone shots of a crowd of women chanting “We are awake and against discrimination!” And as they head straight for the gunmen, gunshots ring out. The camera pans upside down as the women run, the cameraman tries to hide in the store but is pushed back by the owner.
Starting from the end and recalling the story in frames has its own emotional logic, as Entezari describes in voiceover that under the Taliban, everything was frozen back, twenty years of Afghanistan’s gains were coming to an end, and women were thrown back centuries after everything they had fought for.
To ensure that this erasure does not result in total silence, Entesar turns the film into a reflective diary, his camera often turning his own incredible work as a journalist. Spreading these shots means finding a shop online and willing to serve men; Interviewing the other women means knowing only half of their addresses so that she doesn’t leave the full address under constant threat of torture, while she obsessively repeats that she could be killed any day and someone needs to deliver the footage urgently and independently.
The film cuts before its images begin.
Much of the film takes place in homes where women gather in circles and talk about their fear of losing their rights or the grief of having already been taken, as one recounts how she was forced into marriage at the age of fourteen by a family relative. Education, work and intimate freedom are combined with the question of inheritance in general, how their knowledge can reach future generations. What will remain after such an existence?
It’s amazing how, without so much hope, power, and media attention, these characters still find moments to laugh, apply lip liner to the camera, and invent little rituals that keep each other sane. The scene that cuts the deepest comes when the women share lunch in colorful clothes and say that if the regime wraps them in all black, literally and metaphorically, it is only an act of resistance.
771 days It prompts us to think about how unequally women’s rights are distributed and, above all, it is discussed when some women fight for the right to learn to read and against child marriage, while those in privileged countries are lucky and argue about the gender pay gap. Unable to stop the horror with images, Entesar juxtaposes the warm gatherings of women with secretly filmed panoramas of the Taliban, who look past the hatred of these armed men and wonder what brought their minds to such a state. It’s a kind of confrontational documentary where real life makes it impossible to do otherwise.
bad picture
Entesar declares early on that he has found faith in visual storytelling, and his 71 minutes unfold in one breathless flow. He does not waste a minute on poetic reflections and elegant transitions, but relentlessly immerses us in evidence and relevance.
However, the opening apology is, in fact, unnecessary. As Hito Steyerl rightly argued in his seminal essay To protect the image of the poorSuch visuals carry their own aesthetics of immediacy, which makes one feel and think about the value of shots whose ordinary beauty has been sacrificed for the risks in which it was taken. Nor does Enthezar illuminate the shots with concepts. Some dramatic instrumental music is enough, and little more is needed, as the unsteady, low-resolution images shot with phones and handheld cameras in crowds and clandestine gatherings already carry the weight of the story, offering a side of Afghanistan only those women can tell from the inside.
in other words, 771 days It owes its existence to such images and the immense bravery of its creator and participants, and within these life-threatening and financial constraints, Entezar finds his aesthetic power in the marks left by his images. If the phrase “voice of resistance” has become absurd in recent times, the film and the fearless women behind it are a sobering reminder of what it can really mean in such circumstances.
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