Wajma

Barmak Akram's Wajma is a film about "honor" — not the public, performative kind of honor killings, but the quieter, domestic violence that happens behind closed doors and is never reported. Wajma (Wajma Bahar) is a law student in Kabul who falls in love with a waiter. When she becomes pregnant, her father (an otherwise gentle, loving man) transforms into a monster of patriarchal rage.

The film is a study in complicity. Wajma's mother — who fled an abusive husband herself — watches the violence and does nothing. Wajma's brother is the only one who protests, but he is silenced. In one devastating scene, Wajma's father beats her with a vacuum cleaner cord while the family sits in the next room, pretending not to hear.

Akram, an Afghan filmmaker based in Paris, shot the film in Kabul with extraordinary courage. The subject — sexual freedom, family violence — is taboo in Afghanistan. The film premiered at Sundance and won awards at festivals worldwide. It has never been shown publicly in Afghanistan.