Day two of festing brought a more serious feature, Meena Nanji's
View From a Grain of Sand. The film travels thirty years of Afghanistan history, told through the lens of three women--a doctor, teacher, and activist. Roeena, Shapiro, and Wajeeha tell their stories from refugee camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan. These women share their stories and fight, their losses and struggles, and ultimately their journey from lives of freedom to lives of survival in war ravaged Afghanistan. The documentary carries footage (captured by women activists hiding cameras under their burqas) of the Taliban beating women in
burqas and the Taliban shooting of a woman in front of a huge audience in a stadium.
Despite the hardships suffered, these women remain alive, committed to their lives and the lives of their fellow Afghan women. One has returned with her family to Afghanistan, attempting to live without running water and electricity. The other women remain in Pakistan, displaced from their homeland, yet building futures through their work as a doctor and an activist.
I left the film shocked by the reminder of the horrors of the Taliban and the understanding of our country's implicit support of the regimes (the film points out how the U.S. funded the very religious fundamentalists that seized power and gave rise to the Taliban), yet ultimately touched by the strength of the women, their passion and spirit never wavering.