La Vie de Hawa (Writing Hawa)

“We have all lost Afghanistan,” says filmmaker Najiba Noori at the end of the film. As a journalist, she had to leave her home country in 2021 after the Taliban took power – she had a mere five minutes to make this decision. Before that, she wanted to make a film about her mother: After an arranged marriage to a man 30 years her senior, Hawa begins a new life in her mid-fifties – with her own business, dyed hair and the desire to learn to read and write. But political developments are about to thwart her newfound autonomy.