Sadaf Rahimi is the most accomplished female boxer in Afghanistan and well known within her community in Kabul, though her talent attracts social ridicule as well as fame. With the encouragement of her school teacher, Sadaf joined the newly-created women’s boxing team at the age of 13 once her family had returned to their country after being refugees in Iran.

One in a group of 30 girls coached by Saber Sharifi, Sadaf trains in Kabul’s Ghazi Stadium – the same stadium used as a venue for public executions under the Taliban government in the late 1990s. Granted permission by their parents to participate in the boxing team, Sadaf and her teammates represent changing perspectives towards women’s roles in Afghan society. Qualifying for some of the most prestigious competitions in the world, the girls’ outlook towards tradition is influenced by their experiences abroad. At the same time, many of the girls are criticised by their classmates and neighbours for having left Afghanistan.

Sadaf’s boxing and academic achievements have led her into public visibility and turned her into a role model for many Afghan young women – although her athletic career has been jeopardised by death threats and interference from the Afghan Boxing Association, which barred her from travelling to compete in the 2012 London Olympics.

Allowing Sadaf to speak for herself, filmmakers Silvia Venegas and Antonio Amador create an inspiring portrait of a confident and ambitious Afghan woman who is fully supported by her family, yet caught in a changing society where government institutions continue to impose strict social restrictions.

Directed by: Silvia Venegas and Antonio Amador
Country: Spain
Year: 2015
Runtime: 75’

“We used to say health to the people. Now we say health to the rich only.”

On Monday 3 February 2014, the Frontline Club screened the UK premier of Putin’s Olympic Dream. Director Hans Pool shone light onto the crooked nature of Putin’s very own “fake smile.” Behind the facade of the Sochi Olympics is a world where the elderly are uprooted to make way for ice rinks and where 50–70% of migrant workers are deported without pay after months of exploitation.

Director Hans Pool. Photo credit: George Symonds

Pool began the Q&A by describing the film – initially conceived as part of The Sochi Project – as his most difficult project to date. He talked of run-ins with the FSB and interviewees who would refuse further participation after being threatened.

In response to a question about managing the risk to people who spoke on film, Pool said:

“When we were filming, they only told us stories they really wanted to tell us. There was no pressure from us to tell really bad stories.”

However, he was only able to find one human rights defender in Sochi willing to speak to the filmmakers:

“It was very difficult. . . . They are very scared to talk about those things. He was the only one.”

Asked by audience members about navigation of visa restrictions and the more opaque elements of the Russian authorities, Pool described the situation as, “always a kind of cat and mouse”.

A crew member in attendance told a tale of sabotage:

“There were a few cars chasing us all the time. I’m Russian actually, so I was kind of embarrassed because of that, so I went up to them and said, ‘What are you doing? You’re embarrassing me and all the Russians, and we know you’re following us.’ They just acted like nothing was going on.

 

“We were actually laughing about it all the time,” she continued, “and going to this one restaurant every evening. But when we got back we figured out that actually every night we were sitting in the restaurant they were entering our hotel rooms. They managed to destroy all the [memory] discs we were using to film. We just figured it out when we got back to Moscow and when we sent the discs back to the Netherlands they couldn’t open them. When the Sony company, in the end, opened them they saw they were scratched. . . . Well we flew back and filmed everything again in one day, . . . but that was really frightening.”

Project participant Valery Molozov

When asked whether members of the International Olympic Committee had seen the film, Pool said he did not know, however: “For me it’s a big question why they organise those Olympic games in countries like Russia or in Beijing. I really don’t understand. It has to do with a lot of money. You know there’s a lot of corruption.”

“What do you think about boycotting the games?” posed another member of the audience.

“Boycotting the games, I don’t know,” responded Pool. “You have to protest. If you’re going there as a supporter or as a politician you have to discuss these things. I think that’s very, very important. . . . I think it’s very important not to shut your mouth, but to discuss it and to get it in the open. It’s terrible for those workers, because they’re paying for the Olympic games, actually. . . . It’s really a shame out there.”

Putin’s Olympic Dream will be screened at the Lexi Cinema in London on 13 February. It will also be screened in Bratislava, Slovakia, on 10 February through the Frontline Club’s International Partners project.

Shorts at the Frontline Club on 1 February showcased five documentaries that highlight different ways of telling non-fictional stories. Four of the filmmakers were on hand to discuss the themes and process behind their work.

The first film of the evening, Afghanistan: The forgotten war, was shot by Vaughan Smith, who spent three weeks with the Grenadier Guards 3 Platoon in Helmand mid-2012. As the war in Afghanistan drops off ‘top stories of the year’ lists in the news, Smith asks what the soldiers are doing it for. It opens with an announcement of a casualty, Lance Corporal Groom, and the reactions of grief from fellow soldiers – a scene the MoD wanted removed in the final cut.

During the Q&A Smith said:

“I think it is important to show the suffering of war as well as the paraphernalia of war. . . . [The news] we get here is a long sequence of successes which somehow turns into a significant defeat. . . . What are they are fighting for? They are fighting for each other, for their regiment. . . . They are professional soldiers doing a job.”

The next film, Borderland, by Simon Mitchell, looks at the deep divisions of a Syria in conflict; divisions between and within nations, religions, communities and families.

“We have given a very black and white narrative from the outside, it suits our media, it suits our politicians . . . [but] there is a whole contradictory, confusing outlook from almost every perspective [on the ground],” Mitchell said.

From South Africa, Port Nolloth: Between a rock and a hard place is about a former deserted mining hub on the west coast. Filmed against a backdrop of desolate, barren landscape and sleepy shops, director Felix Seuffert introduces three characters and their stories – all tied to the diamond trade for better or worse. Seuffert was not on hand for the screening.

After, by Lukasz Konopa, is a silent ‘day-in-the-life’ of today’s Auschwitz. It is a meditative reflection beginning and ending with the routine maintenance and care of facilities as a variety of tourists cross the train tracks that once transported victims. The film is a student project inspired by the poem Campo dei Fiori by Polish Nobel Laureate Czesław Miłosz.

“[The film is about] how past and present melds, how do Europeans remember [the] past? Which, growing up in Poland, is [a] very important subject because wherever you go you see places where people were dying or were killed and it’s kind of normal, we get used to that, it’s everywhere,” Konopa said.

The last film of the evening was director Kate Sullivan’s Walk Tall, an animated portrait of 1948 Olympic gymnast and indefatigable nonagenarian George Weedon. It moves between filmed scenes of Weedon’s present-day campaign to improve the world’s posture and animated clips detailing his story and the challenges he overcame on the way to the Olympics.

Sullivan said: “After his Olympic escapades [Weedon] worked for a great number of years as a builder and I just have a general love of DIY manuals, and that was the starting point for the styling [of the animation]. . . . The whole film is handmade, he is a guy with a handmade gym in a garden, so to me that was a lovely poetic thing.”

July

On 1 July, Canadian Mark Carney replaces Mervyn King as the head of the Bank of England. Carney has already caused quite the stir in the world of central banking by suggesting banks could have GDP – as opposed to inflationary – targets, so his arrival at The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street may inject some much needed pizzazz into the monthly policy briefings.

The same day, Croatia is scheduled to become the 28th member of the European Union. Despite the likely continued financial and economic challenges facing the region, expect much EU back-slapping as it welcomes its latest member into the fold.

The issue of whether to allow women to be ordained as bishops in the Church of England is set to be revisited at the church’s summer General Synod, which runs from 5-9 July. It was immensely embarrassing for the CoE that proposals were voted down in November 2012 and leaders are highly unlikely to allow a repeat.

Finally, at precisely 8am on 7 July, Spanish and international lunatics will once again willingly put themselves at risk of horrific injuries when the annual Pamplona bull run kicks off.

August

An extradition hearing is scheduled to open on 12 August in New Zealand in the case of the larger-than-life founder of Megaupload, Kim DotCom (née Schmitz). Since his arrest the German-born tycoon with a penchant for preposterous self-portraits has endeared himself to New Zealanders, becoming something of a celebrity, particularly after he earned a public apology from Prime Minster John Key after it emerged he had been surveilled illegally.

Meanwhile, in New York Abu Hamza is due to go on trial on 26 August, following his extradition from the UK in 2012. The Egyptian-born radical preacher faces allegations that he was involved in hostage taking in Yemen in 1998, attempting to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon from 1999-2000, and ‘facilitated’ violent jihad in Afghanistan. If found guilty on the first charge, he could face the death penalty.

Finally, 28 August marks the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.

September

Russian President Vladimir Putin hosts G20 leaders, including his US counterpart Barack Obama, in St Petersburg from 5-6 September.

Two days later, on 7 September, the International Olympic Committee opens its 125th session, the highlight of which will be the announcement of which city will be hosting the Olympics in 2020. Contender cities are: Istanbul, Madrid and Tokyo.

Germany’s Angela Merkel faces an election this month, with 22 September seen as a possible date (the election window runs from 8 September to 27 October). The leader of the Christian Democrats seems likely to remain leader of Eurpoe’s largest economy, however she is likely to replace her coalition partners the Free Democrats with the Social Democrats.

October

With the global economy, and more precisely its poor performance, still likely to be at the top of the agenda, the IMF and World Bank meetings take place from 11-13 October in Washington DC.

From 18-19 October, Panama will host leaders from the Iberian Peninsula and Latin American for the 23rd Ibero-American Summit.

Lastly this month, there are elections (on a date yet to be announced) in Azerbaijan, where current President Ilyam Aliyev hopes to be re-elected. The lack of meaningful opposition in the oil-rich nation means his wish is likely to become reality.

November

From 5-21 November, UNESCO will hold its biennial General Conference in Paris with the Palestinian Authority in attendance as a full member.

In Chile, elections take place on 17 November. President Sebastián Piñera’s popularity has plummeted since the remarkable events at the San Jose mine back in 2010; in particular he has faced vocal opposition from the country’s students. There are rumours that the country’s first female and highly popular president, Michelle Bachelet, may be tempted to return to Chilean politics to challenge Piñera.

A day later, on 18 November, NASA will launch its latest mission to Mars, the MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution) spacecraft from Cape Canaveral in Florida. It will not arrive at the Red Planet until Autumn 2014.

Finally, on 30 November, Hondurans will go the polls to elect a new president. The current leader Porfirio Lobo, who replaced Manuel Zelaya following a controversial ‘coup’ in 2009, has indicated he does not plan to run. In reality, both Lobo and Zelaya may well be candidates.

December

On December 10, the winner of the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize will pick up the accolade at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway.

In the United States, meanwhile, Newtown, Connecticut, will mark the anniversary of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, in which 20 students and six teachers were killed by Adam Lanza. It remains to be seen whether the country’s gun laws will be meaningfully modified. Previous shooting-sprees have resulted in little or no action being taken.

Finally, British Prime Minister David Cameron has promised that by December 31, UK troop levels in Afghanistan will have been reduced to just over five thousand ahead of NATO’s withdrawal by the end of 2014. Despite claims by politicians of significant progress, many commentators are anticipating a total implosion once foreign troops leave the Graveyard of Empires.

Images courtesy of Mark III Photonics / Shutterstock.com