Shahrbanoo Sadat’s “No Good Men,” which opens the Berlin Film Festival, mixes romance, politics and humor in ways that Afghan cinema has never done before.
It’s the tale of a camerawoman at a Kabul TV station who — while struggling to retain custody of her 3-year-old son after leaving her unfaithful husband — becomes romantically entangled with the station’s star male journalist just before the 2021 fall of Kabul to the Taliban. The Afghan filmmaker’s previous two films, 2016’s ”Wolf and Sheep” and 2019’s ”The Orphanage,” both premiered at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight.
“No Good Men” is lead-produced by Germany and Denmark’s Adomeit Film (“The Square”).
Sadat spoke to Variety about the film.
Your previous films were dramas. What made you want to make a rom-com?
I wanted to make a romantic comedy because I realized that the popular kind of films about Afghanistan are war dramas. And I didn’t want to make another another film like that. I come from Afghanistan, a country with no film industry. We are misrepresented in films made by international filmmakers. So for me, it was like: “How can I make an authentic film about a woman that I recognize?” I thought: “What if I make a rom com?” But the moment we started to finance it, I realized how uncomfortable the funds were in financing an Afghan rom-com because they just didn’t get it.
Tell me more about your struggle to make an Afghanistan-set rom-com.
This was at the time [2021] when I was evacuated from Afghanistan to Germany. There was this vibe of: “It’s just inappropriate for our institution to finance a rom-com while brave Afghan women are fighting in the streets against the Taliban.” And I was like: “I was one of them!” But I also wanted to talk about Afghan men. The good men. We know the that Afghan men are violent. But there is also another reality in Afghanistan. We have good men and bad men. But they never get a chance to be represented. So I thought: I’m going to make a film about women that is also a love letter to all the good men.
This film is being promoted as the first Afghan film featuring an onscreen kiss. But it’s probably also the first Afghan film also featuring a vibrator. What are your thoughts about that?
Probably the first and the last one! Actually, I was not thinking anything. Because, returning from my travels I’ve brought sex toys as presents for my girlfriends who lived in Kabul. So for me, it’s just something that happens. My film is not an agenda film. I didn’t try to put it in there for some special reason. But it’s interesting, because Afghan society is very conservative. So whenever something is not allowed, the demand for it is even higher.
“No Good Men” is obviously going to play for Western audiences. But did you also make it with Afghan viewers in mind? Do think they will be seeing it illegally?
You know, in my head, I am an Afghan director who is making films for Afghan people. This is always an issue between me and my producer, because my producer is like, “In the end it’s going to play in cinemas in Europe!” And I’m like: “Great, but that’s not the audience I had in mind when I was writing the movie!” When I was in Kabul, there were no movie theaters. So of course, I was watching them illegally on the internet. In the end I think this is the film that Afghan society desperately needs. That said, I’m not naive or optimistic that they’re going to receive it positively. In fact, I know that some are not, even though I made it from a really good good place in my heart. But in the worst case, it’s gong to start a conversation, an unpleasant one, but a necessary one.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
