Passing the Rainbow
Interview with Sandra Schäffer
The film opens with the text: “This is not a documentary on situation of women in Afghanistan.” Then, what is it? Why is it important to introduce the film with this statement?
Well, our idea was rather to focus on different strategies and to undermine the very rigid gender norms. For me it’s also, – I don’t really believe in the gender binary system and this heteronormative understanding of gender so, although I would say Afghanistan is very strongly a gender binary society, we didn’t want to fall in the pitiful of the Afghan women, so we really tried to edit the film in a different way. We rather wanted to put the focus on the strategies and it didn’t matter on what level, so it could be the strategies in filmmaking or in a daily life or political life. We had a lot of problems when we tried to find money for the film in Germany. Our concept was not accepted because they wanted us to concentrate on maximum two or three portraits of women, individual women, -they said “people in Germany won’t understand, they can’t identify, it’s such a faraway country, everything is so different there, so you have to have some kind of an emotional relation, you have to build up an emotional relationship”. But we didn’t want to build up or reduced it to this emotional relationship. We were really more interested in a structure and in the system, how it works, not reproducing this. That is why we tried a different approach. We didn’t want to put it into this corner, that’s why we put this text in front of the film. Of course everybody is free then to interpret it in a way he/she wants, you can’t change this, but we said at least we decide to say this in the beginning of the film, so if it is framed in another way, at least we announced it in the beginning. It’s a bit strong and emblematic but we had a strong need to do that because we were so tired of this films that we saw. We watched many films while working on our own that were produced inside Germany or in many different parts of the world, but also inside of Afghanistan and we were really tired of this pity reflex. That is why we wanted to make it very clear.
How do you problematize the concept of representation? What role do performative tactics play in “Passing the Rainbow”? What can you comment on the re-enactment scene of women’s demonstration?
I started with joining the making of this demonstration scene that somehow already at that point, it was very much about the production of representation, which was very interesting because this demonstration scene in the film “Osama” is so short that you hardly remember it. I don’t remember how many seconds it is, but it is very, very short and the whole shooting, of course, took place, I don’t know, during the whole day. We started with this short film, the making of the demonstration, it was our access through this, it was somehow, always questioning how are the images or representations constructed. In the beginning when we came back to Kabul and we were looking for different actresses and women who played as actresses in the film, we recorded many interviews which were very important for all of us and we shared a kind of memories and we also showed the short film that we edited and we talked about it. We also talked about the film “Osama”, how they liked the film and so on. But there where some topics, also in particular with some friends of ours, the problems that were addressed, like for example, the sister- brother conflict, which was really a very traumatic conflict inside the family. So, we had the feeling that we cannot show this interview, although we recorded it, we can’t, because it produces different problems, one problem is that it could be very embarrassing for the family to show this in public, to watch your “dirty clothes” in public, so you don’t do that…and at the same time you would reproduce this victim role, you know, for example, of the girl that in this case, the real story was, that the sister received a scholarship and the money was taken away by her brother, and we thought, we cannot show that. They didn’t t want it also to be shown, of course, inside the film. And this brother-sister conflict we came across this problem so many times, so we really thought it would be good to include it into the film. And than we were discussing with the two girls what could be a problem or what would you like to address in this brother-sister conflict and than the idea came up. Well, the idea was already there to stage the scene in order not to reproduce the victim role, etc. but than they developed the scene about becoming an actress and what the problem is. We rehearsed together the scenes several times so it was always improvised, but their wish was that the girl, the sister can win the argument, – it sometimes worked and sometimes it didn’t, but most of the time she was more successful in the argument they had and this was one strategy somehow to circumvent this kind of reproduction of the victim in the interview.
We also thought, we don’t want to have this kind of, because I don’t believe in authenticity anyway, for me it doesn’t exist because the society we live in is produced and the image is produced, so I’m highly critical on this films that claim to represent the authentic voices from Afghanistan and than to represent the reality. So, what we did after we finished the editing, we went back with the rough-cut, or it was the first version we noticed that we started to censorship ourselves while editing and this was the point, we thought we really have to go back with the rough-cut – it is something we always had in mind – we tried to imagine what could be problematic, we had to ask everybody because they know much better than we do. But than we found out, when we came back, that the girl who played the role of the sister, in this brother-sister conflict got married in the very conservative family, and it was for us very shocking, and very sad and difficult, also we were thinking what we could do about her situation, is there actually something we can do somehow to improve her situation, but it was not so easy for many reasons. We have been thinking, what can we do now about the sequences in the film? The mother told us, “please, can you take it out?”, than we thought like, if we take it out – our dramaturgy doesn’t t work anymore and it is such a nice scene… we cannot just erase her – which is also very – I don t know – I found it very bad… because she had this energy, and than we had this idea, we didn’t t want to completely erase her with this kind of black thing you put over her eyes because it is very violent, erasing the individuality of this person so we decided to construct this black and white mask, its anonymous her but at the same time you keep her very vivid, her appearance in the scene. Than, we staged actually another scene in the helicopter, to contextualize this black and white mask. Before, we didn’t have in mind this helicopter scene with the president of Afghanistan, which is played by Agheleh Rezaie and refers actually to another movie where she played for a first time in a film “Five in the afternoon” by Samira Makhmalbaf. There she plays the role of a woman who dreams of becoming a president. So, we thought ok, this is great, in our film she can just be the president of Afghanistan and many times we went to this TV station Shamshad and they have this kind of park of old weapons which is as well a de –mining organization and they do also educational work where they explain to their pupils how mines look like and they have this helicopter which we could use for our shooting. This is why we invented this scene to somehow give a context to this problem with the daughter that got married into a family which is very conservative, -because traditionally it is in this way, if you get married as a woman into another family this family is responsible for you, and your family does not have any claim anymore, particularly if you don’t have a very powerful position. These are some of the strategies. Is there anything else that comes to my mind?
We used a lot of re-enactments actually, we also staged another demonstration at the same place where the “Osama” demonstration took place, of course, not with a thousand women because we had a very limited budget and not such a big team, we were only a very small group. We thought it would be very interesting to see what the claims would be of the women if a demonstration took place right now and what they would be asking for. One of the main claims was really the claim to work. I would say, this was the main claim. I just mentioned before that Hamida says that we don’t know where to go and who to approach. This is something that she made very strong in her speech and then there was the claim which is very specifically addressed to Hamida’s situation at that point. She used to live in the camp in Kabul, a tent camp, and the government wanted to remove this camp without offering any other possibilities to build a house or to give them a place where they can build something. It is a big problem, because there is not much space for people in Kabul, it is so crowded now, because the majority of people try to live in Kabul and there is not enough housing. 80% of the housing is informal housing, people just build houses made out of clay and also the Ministry for urban housing and planning just accepts it and try to improve these informal settlements, because the government can’t offer any better solution. So, she made this claim, if our camp gets removed the government has to offer us other spaces, houses or something. This was very specifically addressing her situation, and than Aiqela, who plays the reporter in this scene, she said, that women in Afghanistan know how other women live in other countries and of course they want to have this kind of comfort and rights as well, so its kind of turning around this situation, – we know what we are talking about, and we know how life works in different parts of the world. So, there are some differences, but in the film “Osama” it was mainly the claim to work, that was the focus that Siddiq Barmak had for his film.
Where did you present “Passing the Rainbow” and how did your audience react to it? Which aspects of the film triggered the debates?
When we showed it in Afghanistan in 2008 there where many debates after the screening and some debates that I haven’t expected at all, for example, there is this speaker who speaks in Dari with a German accent, because we recorded it in Berlin and there was a massive discussion on why she doesn’t t speak properly Dari and she has this German accent, and there was in the audience a debate about who actually speaks here in the auditorium, in the audience, a proper Dari? Because all of us somehow used to live in different parts, either Iran or Pakistan, Europe, etc. so it was suddenly a discussion that I never have expected, a discussion about migration actually that was triggered by this short commentary – of course we were totally aware – and she told us that she speaks with an accent, because she grew up in Germany but we didn’t t mind – we said we are going back and forth between Germany and Afghanistan, so it is fine – so this was one debate we never had in Germany or any other European country, so it was a specific debate for Afghanistan. Than we were blamed that there is so much background noise in our film, during the interviews for example, and there were many film students who joined the screening during the festival in Kabul and I had a feeling they are learning something right in that moment and that they are reproducing this knowledge, and of course there is a lot of background noise and we decided to have this background noise because Kabul is a very noisy city and if you are in a building that is close to a street you have a lot of horns and a kind of people shouting… so we also wanted to show that, to get a little bit of feeling and impression of this city. Then, it was difficult for some people in the audience to relate for example to the burka and what is the film situation and why do women use the burka in front of the camera and some of them couldn’t really see it as an strategy that is used to anonymise themselves, so it was just taken as a statement by us. That was really strange, you know, – we didn’t tell them to wear the burka, you know, but they were really blaming us, – “how can you show the burka so much in your film?” You see that here many women don’t wear the burka anymore, they are very open, they talk in public and so on and so forth, so I was totally surprised. Even the scene from “Osama”, that was a film not made by us and it refers to a film of the Taliban, it was taken so literally. It was really…many fractures … it was amazing … and than… there was one very interesting remark by a very young pupil, and she said, referring to the statement by the action filmmaker Saba Sahar, who says at one point that “Rights are not given to women so they have to be taken by force” and than she said “I don t understand it because to take it by force we have seen where all those wars lead us to and how can she say that? What does it mean to take it by force?”, and it was of course very difficult to understand it, because Saba Sahar doesn’t mean by military force, but she meant rather by this kind of police or state force, so it is a kind of different force that she wants to address, although she is very strong in her statement, very sharp and radical. These where discussions we never had in Europe and I think the way we made the film it was a bit difficult, also Siddiq Barmak, the filmmaker who made the film “Osama”, said it at one point. He said our way to make a film is not really a proper documentary but also not a feature film, so that is why it was quite challenging for many, as well for the film students.
This was the festival that we organized together with other filmmakers from the artist group Basa Film in Kabul and it was a festival that focused on gender and society.
Afterwards, we agreed not to show the film in Afghan TV, which I think it’s really a shame. We had a debate before this screening took place within the festival, but Aiqela didn’t t want the film to be shown in Afghan TV because she wasn’t happy anymore with her explaining of how we got the shooting permission, because she is now the director of the school where she used to work as a teacher, and she also has short sleeves, so she was a bit under pressure at that time. She wanted at first somehow that we cut out the scene and we said “No, it is impossible. We had this meeting and we showed you the rough-cut and you said it is no problem at all – it is not so easy – we can’t – you know – if you take it really serious you have to be very clear if its really so serious.” It is very difficult to negotiate to what point, you know, and what does it mean, what is the situation or how strong is the effect really on those who want any changes to be made. Then, we agreed not to show the film in Afghan TV, which is really a shame, because the television plays a very important role at the moment in Afghanistan and everybody can watch it and for me it would have been very interesting that the film to be screened there and then, I don’t know, it would have been interesting to see how the debates would have been. But now it is just being reproduced copied on DVD, which is a very important market as well, so you can watch films at home and then have a kind of black market for DVDs.
And then in Germany, if we show the film we still very much receive the questions like “How is the situation really like in Afghanistan?” and so on. It depends very much on the audience, so I’m not sure, we tried our best in terms of our own strategies that came to our mind somehow to intervene into this stereotype representation that we didn’t t want to reproduce in our film and really to include very different ways in which Afghan filmmakers show themselves, and to introduce their work and at the same time also going back to Afghan history and the Afghan cinema, and include clips from the film “Rabia Balkhi” from the 1970, to have an older example and also to intervene in this kind of idea – to show that there has been an Afghan cinema production and so we tried to intervene in this. It is difficult for me to tell actually what effect it had, because I can tell about some reactions but it is something that happens itself.
What can you tell us about the conditions and process of production of this film? How was the production of “Passing the Rainbow” organized, were there some difficulties, pressures?
It’s not so different from the situation in Germany I would say, of course it’s different in terms of money and there is a big system to support filmmaking, but in terms of that you are not free to make any film that you want to make it’s not so different, because the film funding system in Germany, I find it really terrible, because they have certain ideas of how films should look like and how they shall function. At first we thought we might collaborate with TV, but it was impossible because they wanted us to make a film we didn’t want to make, on the other hand, they said, “oh no, we have already something on Afghanistan, Afghanistan is covered, this nation is covered”, so it did not matter what kind of approach we had. So, it’s very difficult in Germany as well, we struggled a lot to get money and finally we found money through really different ways. We got money from the German cultural foundation and in order to get money to produce the film we as well had to offer something, like a screening, etc. From the beginning we didn’t have the idea to organize a film festival, you know, it would have been great perhaps to do it anyway, but not to offer it immediately, because we first wanted to make the film and it really takes a lot of time, a long time, and you never know when you really finish it. But we only could apply, for example, for money with also having this kind of public screening thing, and than they would give us money for the film. It was really difficult. Then we got money from art funding rather than from the film funding, because we didn’t change our screenplay, they wanted us to change the screenplay from the film funding and we didn’t t do it. We tried to do it a little bit, but it was not enough.
Do you consider “Passing the Rainbow” as a collaborative project?
For “Passing the Rainbow” I would say it’s a collaborative work but at the same time Elfe and I were the once who somehow started the project and also pushed it forward and came with questions to Afghanistan. But then we developed scenes together, topics together with different friends and colleagues in Kabul, so at this level it is definitely a collective work, but then we went back with the material and started to edit it, which was of course a very strong kind of setting of narrative, so that’s why in the film we always say it is a work by Elfe and me in collaboration with, because I think it makes a difference and you have to be aware of it. Although we went back with a rough-cut, we changed it again, we spoke back, but it’s not made in a way that we always sat together as a group while editing. We tried really to intervene and not only being us the once who…for example, the scenes that we staged we never said that has to be exactly like this, but it’s really developed together and improvised so there is a certain openness in it and it also means that it’s not always exactly the way that Elfe and I would have wanted it to be, and you also couldn’t exactly tell it, because one spoke Dari and my Dari is not so good, so certain parts I’m not able to understand or to get. So, in this terms it is a collective work but at the same time I would say there is also a hierarchy in it, because of the editing process. But we tried to open it as much as we could and to be as much transparent as we could.
“The film is something that should be distributed, it is somehow a tool of knowledge.” How did you organize the distribution of “Passing the Rainbow”?
As for the distribution: we don’t have, we don’t work with a distributer – we distribute it ourselves and in Afghanistan it is just being copied, we don’t mind. But here we try to get a little bit of money and hope that people ask us if they want to show the film – it depends, if someone wants to show the film and doesn’t have the money at all, you know, we don’t mind. But if there is an organization or an institution that has some money they really should pay us something if possible. We didn’t t have enough money to produce the film, we worked without being paid, we gave money to everybody who collaborated with us and worked together with us in the film, but we, ourselves didn’t t get paid. This is always a bit of a problem, but at the same time the film is there to be shown and if it gets distributed, the DVD, for example, that we produced doesn’t t have any copy protection, you can make it but, Clemens asked me, “should we do this protection on it?”, and I said, come on! you can use the ripper or whatever. If people want to copy it, somehow it’s good. The film is something that should be distributed, it is somehow like a tool of knowledge and that is fine – but still if we can get some money back – we need it, also to produce other films. So, this is my position towards the distribution. But for the films that we show now here in Barcelona, it depends, usually there is not really a distribution company, and there are no private distribution companies in Afghanistan and mostly the filmmakers distribute their films themselves. We asked every single filmmaker if we can show their films and sometimes if we had no, for example for the screenings in Barcelona and Madrid, we could not pay any screening fees because Casa Asia just financed the translation and subtitling, and it was something that we were really unsure about, if we should do that or if the filmmakers are really interested in that, but than they agreed, so this is something we always have to negotiate with every filmmaker or group. Then, there is one State Film Institute in Afghanistan, it is called Afghan Films and they own the rights of the historical films that we showed, so we always have to negotiate with them as well if we show films from their archive. This is the situation, so we always have to somehow speak back. But than in Afghanistan itself you don’t really have a copyright law, it doesn’t exist so you get any films – from Hollywood movies to European art house cinema, it doesn’t t matter, you can get anything in the small shops or bazaars, nobody cares about that, because there are not so many cinemas. I think there are 11 cinemas in Afghanistan, but you mainly watch films at home, and that is why the DVDs play a very important role, a very important market, and so many of the films are distributed through DVD or TV. If you produce for TV, I’m not so sure how it works actually, because Roya Sadat she is at the moment the director of a TV series, “The secret of this house”, which is very popular, but I think she doesn’t own the rights at all any more. The rights belong than to the TV company and they try to make a lot of money, I think, if you want to show it. This can be very limiting but you have production means to produce films, which is great, but you loose the distribution rights.
Who can produce films in Afghanistan?What has changed in Afghan film production after 2001?
There are many courses that are offered by different organisations, international organisations where you can learn filmmaking in a workshop but these are really short-term projects and of course only those who have time and money and are literate can join this kind of courses and also for filmmaking. For example, Roya Sadat and Alka Sadat, they are two sisters they both produce films; Roya Sadat works with feature films and Alka Sadat with documentary films, – they have certain production means, they get some money, they know how to apply for money but they also have certain means from their home, how they can now produce a film. Of course as a person who is struggling to survive, you don’t produce films. And than for filmmaking, there is not really a good film school, you can study film at the university, but it is really … I don’t know… I have also the feeling that to have all those different workshops, where you can learn a little bit of this and that, I think it doesn’t make sense. There are always so many specialists from abroad sent to Afghanistan for a lot of money, and I think if this money could get collected and really used to build up a film school or a proper education, it would be much better and more important. That there is a equipment for example, I remember when we were there a couple of years ago at the university, there was hardly any equipment, so then you can only produce films if you have the capital to produce, so people who come from families who have this kind of financial background, they can produce films, others can’t. That is why… I’m totally tired of this workshop issue in Afghanistan. It is not helpful anymore. It is good for a start…but not really to build up a film scene that would autonomously work.
There are much more films produced than before of course, because during the Taliban time it was forbidden and only the Mujahedeen groups produced films and there were one or two feature films produced during that time. Now we have these cheaper production means which of course makes it easier to produce films. So there is one production that goes more in a direction of action films and love kind of more Bollywood film influence filmmaking, and those films are very popular amongst Afghan people. There are now also private production companies, than you have filmmakers who came back from the exile, but there are hardly filmmakers like Siddiq Barmak, he is the only one who can produce on 35 mm and really gets money from the outside. So, there are hardly any production companies from the outside to give money to Afghan filmmaker to produce films because they don’t really trust the situation, so you have this kind of Hollywood productions like “Kite Runner” that was produced by Marc Forster a couple of years ago, but he didn’t dare to shoot inside Afghanistan, he shoot the film in China and other parts of the world, including some Afghanistan actors and actresses, the main actor actually came from London, he lives in London. And than the money to produce films inside Afghanistan mainly comes from the NGOs and they of course commission to make certain films …it is very difficult … if you want to produce really the films that you want to produce you have to negotiate with those institutions and organisations, sometimes you are able to find strategies to satisfy them, satisfy yourself, but sometimes it is only to earn a little bit of money or to produce some films. It is not so easy because there is not so much private money from private production companies who really can support local filmmakers to make their films and no international film production companies who really give the money to them. It is really difficult and they mainly take this international money from the NGOs.