WRITING HAWA

Najiba Noori, Rasul Noori (co-director), Afghanistan / France / Netherlands / Qatar, 2024, 84 min., Documentary, Dari, English with English subtitles

Forced into marriage as a child to a man 30 years her senior, Hawa fights for a measure of self-determination decades later. While her husband suffers from Alzheimer’s, she learns to read and write at the age of 52 in order to set up her own textile business in Kabul selling modern Hazara embroidery. She wants a free life for her daughter and a secure future for her granddaughter Zahra, whom she rescues from a violent father. But with the return of the Taliban, all hopes are dashed: Zahra must return to her family, her daughter flees into exile in France, and Hawa’s newly won freedom is once again threatened—as is that of all women in Afghanistan. A loving tribute from a daughter to her mother—and a haunting portrait of the disenfranchised women of Afghanistan.
Najiba Noori (director)
Najiba is a Hazara director from Afghanistan. She’s been a journalist for Agence France Press from 2019 to 2021 until she was forced to leave Afghanistan for France, where she currently lives and works. Najiba’s first feature documentary Writing Hawa has premiered at IDFA 2024 in the international competition and has been selected so far to more than 40 film festivals around the world and has won prestigious awards. Najiba is the first woman from Afghanistan, who sailed worldwide with an all-female crew on Maiden’s historic boat in 2023-2024, winning the Ocean Globe Race among the thirteen other international boats. Her role was to make a documentary about this journey of 8 months at sea. This film is currently in production.
WRITING HAWA celebrated its world premiere at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). The film was subsequently screened at numerous international festivals, including the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto, the International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights in Geneva, the One World Film Festival in Brussels and Prague, the International Documentary Film Festival Munich, and Docs Against Gravity in Poland.
It received several awards, including the FIPRESCI Prize at IDFA, the Youth Jury Documentary Film Prize sponsored by Peace Brigades International in Geneva, the kinokino Audience Award in Munich, a Special Mention of the Rights! at Docudays Ukraine, and the Audience Award at the One World International Human Rights Film Festival in Prague.