Afghan Girls Can Kick

Afghan Girls Can Kick is being shown at the international documentary film festival in VancouverThursday May 28 | 1:00PM | Pacific Cinémathèque

Under
the Taliban, women’s freedom in Afghanistan was almost entirely curbed.
For five years, women went through life veiled, usually indoors,
excluded from education and, of course, from sports. Now some women are
seizing their chance to do what they couldn’t before. Afghan Girls Can Kick
is a portrait of teenage girls breaking stereotypes set by an intensely
conservative Afghan society. As players in Afghanistan’s first ever
women’s national football team, these young women are escaping poverty
while gaining self-esteem and confidence. For security reasons, no
international team has ever played against them in Afghanistan; at a
friendly game on Peace Day, NATO’s women soldiers are no match for the
Afghani team.

When the team is invited to a tournament in Islamabad, it’s the
first time they will play a game on a real soccer field. The film
follows the team’s preparations for their first international matches,
concentrating on a few players. As a child, Roya had to collect waste
paper on the filthy streets of Kabul’s slums to provide fuel for her
family. Through an Afghan charity, she received an education and found
she had a talent for football. She now plays centre-forward for the
national women’s team. Other members of the team recount their problems
with the Taliban and how football helped them see a future in
present-day Afghanistan, beset by insecurity and suicide bombings. The
film offers a rare insight into the lives of young Afghan women,
showing them not as passive victims, but as people striving for a
future.

PRECEDED BY
Journey My Heart
Reil Munro, Canada, 2007, 9 minutes

What begins as a documentary about the rigours of physical training
becomes a complex portrait of a Pow Wow jingle dress dancer. Joanne
Soldier runs miles and weight-trains in an effort to fulfill a
spiritual calling that links her with her elders and the generations to
come. Originally from Swan Lake, Soldier reveals the physical
commitment and cultural necessity of her art form.

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