“They Want to Be Heard and Seen”

In Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where women are denied the right to study, work, or speak freely, a group of young women risk their lives to form a secret reading circle And inspired by Anne Frank’s experiences in 1940s Amsterdam, they start to write their own diaries. For these women, a dystopia is reality. Now, they are sharing it with the world in The Secret Reading Club of Kabul, a documentary directed by Shakiba Adil and Elina Hirvonen and partially filmed by the women themselves.

The film, described as “an intimate … testimony to the power of art to keep hope and humanism alive,” world premieres on Monday, March 16, in the Nordic:DOX competition program of the 23rd edition of the Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, CPH:DOX.

“We experience with shocking clarity what is at stake when the Taliban storms a hidden school or arrests young girls for practicing martial arts,” the festival website highlights about the doc. The story is interwoven with insight into director Adil’s own journey. As a girl, she grew up under the first Taliban regime, and after the fall of the Taliban, she became the first woman to appear on Afghan television. Notes the festival: “After being forced to flee her homeland twice, she has now dedicated her film to the new generation facing the same oppression she herself has endured.”

The Secret Reading Club of Kabul was produced by Marko Talli and Johanna Raita. Cinematography was handled by Jarkko Virtanen, while the editor is Annukka Lilja. Yellow Film & TV is handling sales.

Adil and Hirvonen talked to THR about the journey to get the film made, the protections they put in place for the young women, and their hopes that The Secret Reading Club of Kabul will give Afghan women a chance to be heard and seen around the world.

How did you two first meet?

Adil We met here in Finland when I was working on another project in Afghanistan with young people, which was funded by the Foreign Ministry of Finland. And Elina was working on the same project. I was producing this workshop, and she helped with content for it.

Hirvonen I’m also an author, so I was creating some writing exercises and things like that.

Adil I was in Kabul before the workshop, which was scheduled to take place in August. And there were these rumors of the Taliban taking over cities. I never thought that the Taliban taking over Kabul would ever become a reality again. Their time has passed, so much has been invested, and there is now a proper government, I thought.

Suddenly, I saw my phone was flooded with text messages and WhatsApp messages. It was all my colleagues and people I knew, especially women with whom I had worked, female journalists in Afghanistan. They were all in panic. The minute it was [clear] that the Taliban were all over the place, everybody was trying to get home as soon as possible. Of course, I was in shock. I didn’t want to believe it.

When my niece came back from school, I saw she had been crying, so I asked her why. She said: “We had to say goodbye to our classmates because the headmaster said we cannot come back to school.” I was numb. I felt anxious because I had experienced the first period of Taliban, and [had that same experience]. I remember what they had done, and how I had felt.

Hirvonen I remember texting Shakiba asking, “Do you know how to get out?” And she had no idea. We knew that the Taliban was going door to door and killing people, especially if you’d been collaborating with foreigners. And we knew that Shakiba would be a target because of her work and her history as a journalist, the first woman on TV and a women’s rights activist.

So we started calling all politicians, all ministries on our end. We finally managed to get her on a list, and she was evacuated.

How did you find the young women we get to follow in The Secret Reading Club of Kabul?

Adil I knew the main girl, who established the book club, and she wanted to be part of the film. And in the book club, there were many girls who were ready to take part, but we chose the ones who were more outspoken and had something to say.

What security measures did you use for filming to protect the young women and their identities beyond using names in the film that are not their real names?

Hirvonen Security-wise, we had a security professional helping us, because it was our main priority to make sure that the film would not become [too much of a] risk for the girls. Of course, you can never be 100 percent sure, but we wanted to take every measure possible to not put them at risk.

Our security advisor helped to establish a system for them to send material to us and for them to delete it immediately. And he came up with advice for what to film and how to film so that they would not be recognized. And then we also blurred images. Our advisor is very experienced, has been helping people in similar situations and knows Afghanistan very well and also knows how the Taliban work.

Adil No matter how careful you are, risk still exists. But these girls wanted to be involved and knew the risk from the beginning. The first advice we shared, with the help of the security advisor, was that they had to cover their faces and not film from near a window.

When we started the editing, there were so many [scenes] that we loved but could not use because of security concerns. The security advisor would sometimes say that someone could be recognized and found out. So we had to crop a lot of the footage, blur it, or cut and get rid of lovely shots. The girls had filmed really wonderful material, secretly with their mobile phones.

How early did The Diary of a Young Girl, aka The Diary of Anne Frank, come into play during the filming?

Hirvonen It was there from the beginning. It was something that I remember Shakiba recommended to them as something that might resonate with them.

Adil Long ago, when I came to Finland, the book was given to me by a Finnish friend. As a young girl in Afghanistan, I had always wondered: “Does the world know what we are going through?” I thought that we were alone. I thought we were the only ones who experienced this and that nobody would understand. But when I read the book, I was surprised. I just felt Anne Frank, I really felt her. I just got the feeling someone else had experienced the same thing as me and knew how it feels to be inside your home, not able to do things that you want to do as a young girl.

So when I came back from Afghanistan, that book came to mind. I sent it to so many women in Afghanistan. I asked them to please read it. I tried to Google it and find a PDF or something. I said: “Please read this and write down whatever you feel.” And [one girl who] read it then decided to create the book club.

What I found so harrowing to see in your film, beyond the Taliban beatings and other violence, was how the terror they create affects the young women’s identity. We hear one mentioning how she doesn’t even want to be a woman anymore, doesn’t want to live in Afghanistan anymore and how she is starting to doubt her religion, all because of the Taliban. Did this surprise you as well?

Hirvonen I was extremely moved by how open and how brave they were. I was incredibly moved by how they opened their world completely, on the outside, but also in terms of what happened to them on the inside. For me, it was more surprising how elegant their language was. All these talented women wanted to be in the film. They want to be heard, and they want to be seen. They want to be seen as the human beings they are, not as something that the Taliban tries to make them.

Sometimes, people’s attitude about women in Afghanistan is that they are somehow different, that in their culture, it is somehow okay for them to be treated like that. But when these women show the whole world their inside and outside, you can relate because they’re human beings, and they are not that different.

Adil I was also amazed by their braveness. There is a shot in the film where [one of the women] is walking between all these men. That was one of the first pieces of footage we received, and when I watched that, I was shaking. I was like: “How could you do that?” There is also a shot with a member of the Taliban with a gun standing next to her.

That’s when I realized that they are not my generation. They are different. They have been educated. They know what their right is, and they are not scared to fight for it. They are not scared to face the Taliban. And their attitude is that they never give up. In the film, you see many times how their courses or classes are closed down by the Taliban, but they find another way to continue.

Hirvonen Also, they are supporting each other. They have this sisterhood attitude. And they are using art as a form of resistance. At least for these women, this is actually a concrete thing, filming and writing as a form of resistance. And after seeing this film, even the most pro-Taliban-minded people cannot agree with the Taliban.

What is your hope for The Secret Reading Club of Kabul?

Hirvonen Our hope is that the film can actually bring the international community together to pressure the Taliban, similar to how it happened with Apartheid in South Africa. We want the international community to come together and say that you cannot treat people like this. Basically, our hope is that the voices of Afghan women can not be ignored anymore. Our dream is that the film will bring the international community together to say that this needs to stop.

Adil There are grassroots women’s movements in Afghanistan, even under the extreme restrictions of the Taliban. So, yes, our hope is to bring the international community together to pressure the Taliban and also to recognize [what they are doing] as a crime against humanity. We are looking to amplify the wise voices of these women to the world and bring Afghan women to the world’s agenda. After all, human rights are universal.