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NEW YORK, Feb. 25 (AP) — As the Taliban regains control of the country and pushes women further out of the public eye, an Afghan female filmmaker is working thousands of miles away to help bring the lives of two of her leading ladies back to life in Afghanistan. Popular stories come to life. Her home country, included under the group’s first rule.
The world premiere of A Thousand Splendid Suns at the Seattle Opera opens Saturday night. Based on the novel by Kabul-born author Khaled Hosseini, it explores the inner lives of Mariam and Laila through decades of Afghan history, some of which Very different from the present.
The women, born nearly two decades apart, forged an unlikely bond as they shared an abusive husband and dealt with the struggles they and their country faced.
It’s a story about hardship, injustice and loss, but also about deep love, endurance and a momentous decision that ultimately changes both of their lives and leads to the survival of only one.
This was supposed to be a story of a bygone era — until the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 dramatically changed that.
For Roya Sadat, an opera stage director who lived under the Taliban’s initial rule and rose to fame after the group was overthrown in 2001, the reversal is deeply personal.
She was born in the city of Herat, and she happened to be in the United States when she learned in 2021 that her birthplace had fallen to the Taliban.
Like other historical events in Afghanistan that affected the lives of Mariam and Laila, the takeover reshaped Sadat’s country once again, this time by making her an American asylum.
“I never actually thought that one day I would leave Afghanistan,” the 39-year-old said. “When I heard the news, I was in shock. I just said: No, no, no, it’s not possible.’ … It was like watching a bad movie.”
In that moment, Sadat added, directing A Thousand Splendid Suns took on new meaning.
“Suddenly, my subject changed, and my goodness, now this story is going to repeat itself. Now, maybe a thousand Leila and Mariam will be in the same situation,'” she said.
In her directorial statement, Sadat wrote about being “homeless” in the blink of an eye and described how the goals of her work evolved.
“My task is no longer to simply portray the universal pain, struggle and persistence of women through the stories of two Afghan women,” she said. “It has become a duty to communicate the unparalleled injustice my fellow citizens have condemned.”
Mariam and Laila have long captured the imagination of composer Sheila Silver. She felt like she knew them and wanted to tell their stories. She listened to the book in 2009 and recalled one of the women crying as she faced her death.
“That’s what heroes are made of, people making sacrifices for the ones they love, and that’s what drew me to it,” Silver said.
“It’s about the love, the bond, the resilience and the strength of these two women.”
In this sense, she finds their story universal. “It’s their humanity that we’re celebrating,” she said.
“It’s the story of that era, and it bears striking parallels to today’s era.”
Hosseini, the author of the book, who lives in California, hopes that’s not the case.
He had hoped that the story of “A Thousand Splendid Suns” would become a thing of the past and a “cautionary tale”. But instead, he said, “what’s happening to women today is a brutal déjà vu.”
He lamented that international attention to Afghanistan seemed to have faded. He hoped that opera audiences would be moved by the music, but also that the production, even in limited ways, would spark a conversation about what was going on there.
“I’ve always believed that the arts are our most powerful … teachers of empathy,” he said.
“I hope this opera expresses the collective struggle and sacrifice of Afghans, especially Afghan women, over the past forty years.”
Despite initial promises, the Taliban have increasingly imposed restrictions on women and girls, with a growing list of bans including banning them from colleges and schools beyond the sixth grade.
This sparked international uproar, deepening Afghanistan’s isolation at a time of severe economic turmoil.
The crackdown on women’s freedom dates back to the Taliban’s rule of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 — and to Sadat’s shady life under the group.
She can no longer go to school.
She turned to books, sometimes borrowed from relatives or friends, to expand her world. The home doubled as a school, where her mother and aunt would teach her different subjects.
Through it all, she still has hope.
It was under the Taliban that Sadat sat on the kitchen floor of her home and began writing the script that would become her first film. At the time, she said, she had no electricity; a kitchen fire provided the light she needed to write.
At the end of Taliban rule, a relative helped her get a place in a class that trains female nurses.
There, Sadat said, she helped organize small cultural groups and produced plays critical of the Taliban’s treatment of women. To avoid being caught, students would look inside the stairwells to alert others when Taliban members approached.
After the fall of the Taliban, Sadat and her sister co-founded Roya Film House, a company that produces films and TV series.
Working at the Seattle Opera has special meaning, she said.
“In setting the mood for this work, I tried to show people the beauty of Afghan women’s lives — a part of the world they don’t know and people they haven’t met,” she said.
“I wanted to evoke a Kabul of yesteryear, full of song, poetry, music, color and joy. Throughout Afghanistan’s history, even on the path of pain and suffering, there is the radiant face of a woman.” (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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