A
panel
of
Afghan
female
filmmakers
at
the
Venice
Film
Festival
urged
the
world
not
to
abandon
the
people
of
Afghanistan
and
help
protect
its
culture
and
artists.
Sahraa
Karimi,
the
first
female
president
of
the
Afghan
Film
Organization,
and
documentary
filmmaker
Sahra
Mani,
warned
that
a
country
without
culture
will
ultimately
lose
its
identity.
"Imagine
a
country
without
artists,
a
country
without
filmmakers.
How
can
they
defend
its
identity?" Karimi
told
reporters.
The
organisers
of
the
panel
discussion
said
they
intend
to
raise
global
awareness,
especially
among
media
agencies,
governments
and
humanitarian
organisations.
They
sought
to
shed
light
on
"the
dramatic
situation
of
Afghan
filmmakers
and
artists
in
general,
the
need
for
the
creation
of
humanitarian
corridors
and
the
guarantee
of
granting
them
political
refugee
status."
Karimi
said
all
the
efforts
of
Afghan
filmmakers
have
been
lost.
"It
was
our
dream
to
change
the
narrative
of
Afghanistan,
because
we
were
tired
of
those
cliches
about
Afghanistan," she
said.
"We
wanted
to
produce
films,
movies
and
to
tell
our
stories
from
different
angles,
from
different
perspectives,
to
show
the
beauty
of
our
country."
She
cited
numerous
films
in
pre-and-post
production,
filmmaking
workshops,
insurance
policies
that
have
been
suspended,
with
Afghanistan's
film
archives
now
under
Taliban
control.
Fighting
back
tears,
the
filmmaker
recounted
to
reporters
how
she
had
to
choose
in
a
matter
of
hours
"the
most
difficult
decision"
of
her
life
-
whether
to
stay
or
flee
her
homeland.
"We
are
those
people
that
represent
our
identity
to
the
world,
through
our
films,
through
our
music,
through
our
creative
works.
But
we
are
now
homeless.''
Artists
going
underground
in
Afghanistan
Karimi
fled
Kabul
on
August
15,
along
with
her
siblings
and
nieces.
She
is
now
a
refugee
in
Ukraine.
According
to
Karimi,
thousands
of
filmmakers
couldn't
leave
Afghanistan
and
-
fearing
for
their
safety
-
are
now
erasing
their
social
media
presence
and
going
underground.
Mani
said
she
had
decided
to
stay
in
Afghanistan
under
the
rule
of
the
country's
ousted
government
because
she
was
determined
to
revamp
its
cultural
scene.
"We
stayed.
We
were
optimists,"
she
said.
But
with
the
Taliban
takeover,
"it
means
we
don't
have
anything
to
fight
for.
We
lost
everything."
Mani
is
set
to
present
a
project
at
the
Venice
film
market
fair.