The result is a film that gives voice to a more nuanced and complex narrative that , at the very least , belies popular perceptions of the burqa .
I recently spoke with Ahmed over Skype about her documentary film , which premiered at the 2012
DOXA Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver . The film , she says , has sparked honest dialogue about the burqa . For the filmmaker , who recently took to social media to dispel inaccuracies about the burqa when the debates hit close to home in Canada , the value of frank discussions on this issue has never been more vital .
Ahmed is happy the documentary continues to reach diverse audiences in Canada and the U . S ., but she hopes to show it to men and women inside Afghanistan and other Islamic nations .
What follows is our discussion about filmmaking , activism , and women .
Q : How did you come to be a filmmaker and did you study film knowing you were interested in pursuing this work ?
A : I was interested in journalism at first but realized I wanted to do more than the one-minute story . I wanted to go deeper . It ’ s important to make people think . Books and news articles certainly make us think and that ’ s very important , but if you want social change , you have to make people care . You have to make them feel . And film does that for me .
As a woman from Afghanistan , having lived in both the East and the West , and the mother of two girls , women ’ s issues are important to me . But I did not consider making a film about the burqa until I was married and living in Iran and had to veil myself . It
A true understanding of the burqa and its history is critical .
Brishkay Ahmed
triggered something . I guess I thought there was a certain level of what was acceptable .
Sometimes we can be blind to things . We say , ‘ Oh that ’ s okay because they live in that part of the world .’ In Iran , I saw a young girl , maybe 18 or 19 years old , dragged into a police car by two officers — one , a woman in full chador ( full body cloak commonly worn by women in Iran ) — because her scarf was not worn properly . It angered me .
Suddenly , I realized : this is what I care about . I ’ m going to use film , and I need to go to Afghanistan . A lot of activism — even art , in general , comes from a place of anger . For me , it ’ s certainly rooted there .
Q : The film opens with a scene on a busy Vancouver street . You are dressing a woman in a burqa . The scene ends with an interesting interaction with two Afghan men , who , after observing the scene , share an anecdote about a woman who was dragged by a bus because her burqa was caught in the door . Why did you choose to begin the film that way ?
A : Having been in Iran and seeing incidents like the one with the young girl , I wanted to see how people would react if they actually saw a burqa on the street . Would they be curious ? Would they ignore it ? In the West we are socialized to be politically correct and in doing so we , at times , confuse what we think is culture with oppression .
I asked my friend to walk across the street wearing the burqa . Coincidentally , Afghan men were having coffee at the Starbucks nearby . The conversation with them brought a kind of seriousness to
the experiment .
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