RIGA IFF OFFICIAL COMPETITION
In rural Afghanistan, people believe in the stories they invent to tell each other to explain the mysteries of the world they don’t understand. Even though there are no grownups around, the kids know the rules very well; the main one is that boys and girls are not allowed together. The boys practice with their slings to fight the wolves should they attack the flock. The girls smoke dried branches of wheat and secretly play wedding, dreaming of getting a husband soon. Sediqa picks up her sheep and goats every morning and drops them in the owner’s house every evening. She dreams of having a sling and learning to swing it like the boys. Qodrat, 11, becomes the gossip topic of everyone after his mother marries an old man with two wives. He prefers to be alone in the most isolated parts of the mountains. This is where he meets Sediqa and they become friends until Qodrat’s mother has to send him away.
Film was screened in the Directors’ Fortnight section at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Art Cinema Award.
