DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL - Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)

MY IMPRESSION:
While I was watching this film I was shocked that they got such an intimate portrait of these young girls in Afghanistan. No less, filming women and girls in Afghanistan. The director, Carol Dysinger has been making films in Afghanistan for a long time. Usually they are related to the war. This was her first outing on a lighter topic. I believe she was asked to direct it, it wasn't her concept.

Knowing the culture as well as she does, she knew that the young girls would not open up to speak to her because in their culture there is a respect towards elders where you do not have a frank conversation. Carol found a younger woman who had been born in Afghanistan and moved to the United States when she was three. Carol asked her to do the one on one interviews with the girls telling them that she had left Afghanistan when she was three and always wondered what her life would be like if she had stayed. The girls gave very open interviews about their lives as Afghani girls.

They said that before this program, they were not allowed to leave the house. They would always stay inside and help their mother. Their brothers were allowed to go out to play. The boys all enjoyed skate boarding outside - girls could not do this.

The international non-profit that provides the skateboard lessons along with reading and writing courses recruits girls that are from poor areas. Their mothers cannot read and write and the future for most of these girls was marriage at 14. Some mothers were also interviewed and they were brave strong women. They said they couldn't read and write because they grew up during the war and all the schools were closed. They hoped that their daughters could become literate and maybe continue their education. One mother hopes they will continue to college.

The interviews were amazing in that the girls opened up and were smiling and happy. They were joyful when they learned how to write new words. They were taught to have courage. To always raise their hands and come up to the front board if they didn't know the answer, they would be helped at the front.

The skate boarding was also for the girls to be brave. That there was nothing they couldn't do. They were shown quite advanced things of even rolling off ramps and going through cones. The girls were so happy. They cut to the streets where there are many boys skate boarding on the streets.



SFFILM Program description:
Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl)
(Carol Dysinger, UK/USA 2019, 40 min)
In war-torn Afghanistan, where girls are not encouraged to pursue an education, Skatestan is a special school that works with girls from impoverished neighborhoods. Along with reading and writing, instruction in skateboarding gives them a chance to face their fears and discover their strength.

I like their description.

DirectorCarol Dysinger

Carol Dysinger is a filmmaker, writer, artist, and educator, whose contemporary work offers a counter-narrative to traditional stories of conflict. She is in the midst of a trilogy of films on Afghanistan and America post 9/11.

Carol Dysinger attended for q and a