No Good Men

From Viennale

“There are no good men in Afghanistan!” The line lands like a verdict, sharp yet somehow also weary, echoing through Shahrbanoo Sadat’s disarmingly tender film. From a vivid, Bollywood-like opening sequence of blooming flowers and pop music, Sadat builds a world where colour and life persist on the edge of the abyss. Set in Kabul in 2021, on the brink of the Taliban’s return, the film follows Naru, a television cameraperson fighting for the custody of her son and clinging to her distrust of men, who is played with lively grace by screenwriter-director Sadat. When Naru is paired with seasoned reporter Qodrat (co-screenwriter Anwar Hashimi), professional tension gradually shifts into respect and an uneasy intimacy. Their exchanges are biting, ironic and at times caring, cutting through a world where women are expected to remain silent, adapt and endure. Sadat moves fluidly between humour and devastation: from moments of subversive female solidarity to candid street interviews and the gradual collapse of a society. Shot partly in Hamburg while evoking a Kabul equal parts present and displaced, the film resists easy despair, culminating in a poignant finale where hope still lingers even as catastrophe seeps in. (Maria Giovanna Vagenas)