Reclaiming Rights Brishkay Ahmed, Canada, 2009, 52 minutes
Saturday, May 15 | 1:30pm | Pacific Cinémathèque
Filmmaker Brishkay Ahmed remembers attending a traditional Afghan wedding ceremony, where two consenting souls committed their willing desires with ink on paper. With their hands bound in henna and prayer, the young couple then lit a flame of hope. Ahmed believes that the candle is still burning and she turns her attention to present day Afghanistan, where optimism is flickering and the desire for change is palpable.
Reclaiming Rights follows a team of sassy Afghan lawyers who navigate the chaotic streets of Kabul and risk their own safety to defend their clients. Their clients are women and girls in turquoise burqas. For these young women, words like “Section 183 of the Constitution” or “Item Number 12 of the Civil Rights” mean little. But from their lawyer’s perspective, a window has opened. The opportunity to reclaim lost legal rights through courage and education has arrived. Sex, marriage, love and the law are explored as the girls share their stories to seek freedom and justice. What is most surprising is that news seems to travel at triple speed when it is spoken in Farsi. One court victory leads to another and the women in the film can’t help but celebrate how far they’ve come already.
Canadian premiere
Filmmaker in attendance
Discussion to follow with:
Brishkay Ahmed Director, Reclaiming Rights
Brishkay Ahmed is a documentary producer who lives in Vancouver with her extended family. She was born in Afghanistan and she remembers a moment in time when the country’s laws promised equal rights to men and women. Ahmed is a film and journalism graduate with a passion for documentary films. In 2007, her company ChitChat Productions was formed with the goal of creating social issue projects for television and radio. Ahmed supports her filmmaking passion as a contract researcher and corporate trainer and spends her free time enjoying being six years old with her twin daughters.
Mable Elmore MLA Vancouver-Kensington
Mable Elmore was elected MLA for Vancouver-Kensington on May 12, 2009. She is currently deputy critic for Children and Family Development and Child Care. Mable is a second generation Filipino-Canadian who has been active in the peace movement and on immigrant, social justice, women’s and gay, lesbian and transgendered issues. “Justice, to me, means living in a world with global peace and fairness, a world where everyone is guaranteed their human rights and dignity, and a world where everyone lives free of war, violence, poverty, and discrimination.”
Lauryn Oates Human Rights Campaigner
Lauryn Oates, PhD Candidate at UBC (Literacy & Language Education), is
Projects Director for Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan and a Senior
Advisor to the Canada Afghanistan Solidarity Committee. She has worked with Afghan women since 1996 in their struggle for basic human rights,
particularly the right to education. “To me, justice is a system that protects universal human rights, rooted in the idea that every human has dignity and therefore the right to be treated as such.”
Preceded by: Thorns and Silk Paulina Tervo, UK / Palestine, 2009, 13 minutes
Shot in the West Bank of Palestine, Thorns and Silk is a series of four snappy vignettes about women who work in male-dominated professions. The four spirited characters — a cab driver, videographer, mechanic and police agent — have the courage to break society’s rules, but not without challenges.
Mable Elmore
Lauryn Oates
