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Docudrama lifts the veil on the burqaPublished by the Communications and Development Department
18 June 2004
How would American women cope if they had to wear a burqa, the full-head covering garment worn by Afghani women? That is the question posed in the latest work co-created by Canterbury University filmmaker Shahin Yazdani.
American Burqa is an 84-minute docudrama created by Yazdani and Chicago-based filmmaker Hossein Khandan. It premiered in Chicago a fortnight ago and has had its first New Zealand screening in Christchurch.
Filmed in Chicago, the docudrama follows three American women for a day as they try to carry out normal daily activities while wearing the unfamiliar burqa. Each faces challenges that range from the sheer discomfort of the unwieldy garment to the varied reactions of family, friends, bosses, co-workers and strangers.
“The idea of American Burqa came against the backdrop of September 11 and the conflict and tensions which existed in the immediate aftermath,” explains Yazdani.
“Whether you are prepared to admit it or not, September 11 ushered in a new world, a world of not only unseen or unknown assailants but also one with a brutal and insane craving for destruction which takes place in the name of freedom, democracy and civilisation.”
The docudrama was filmed four months after the 2001 attacks.
Yazdani and Khandan settled upon the idea of American Burqa as a way of showing a token of the pain Afghani women have experienced under the Taliban. Yazdani describes this as “problematising the concept of veil also in its metaphorical sense as it functions in parts of some western societies in the monologist act of defining, branding and pigeonholing other cultures and ways of life”.
Three women, an African-American singer, a white American artist and graphic designer and a Spanish American who works as a Flamenco dancer and teacher, are featured in the film.
Yazdani began his cinematic career in his homeland of Iran.
In 2000 he was appointed Technical Director and Filmmaker-in-residence at Canterbury University’s Department of Theatre and Film Studies.
He is currently working with colleague and theatre director Peter Falkenberg on a joint film project titled Remake, a view of the famous Parker-Hulme murder “which explores the different ways in which youths in cities like Christchurch try to make sense of their lives and transcend their everyday, at times boring existences”.
For further information, please contact: John MacDonald Tel: +64-3-364 2910
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