Ithaca City of Asylum, Cornell University to Show Sahraa Karimi’s Films
Wednesday, March 6 and Thursday, March 7
Ithaca, New York
Ithaca City of Asylum is bringing the award-winning filmmaker and former Univeristy in Exile for Afghan Artists Fellow Sahraa Karimi to Ithaca for a three-day visit timed to coincide with International Women’s Day. Karimi, the first and only Afghan woman with a PhD in film, will publicly screen two of her feature-length films and meet with students and faculty at Cornell University, Tompkins Cortland Community College, and Ithaca College.
Sahraa Karimi is an independent director and screenwriter with more than 30 films to her credit. In 2012, she established a production company in Kabul to support Afghan independent filmmakers and artists but she was forced to leave the country after the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
Karimi will spend Wednesday, March 6, at Cornell as a guest of the South Asia Program at the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies. She will be at Cornell Cinema at 7 p.m. to screen her 2009 documentary, Afghan Women Behind the Wheel. The film won more than 20 prizes at film festivals around the world. After the screening, Karimi will speak with Cornell art history professor Iftikhar Dadi and take questions from the audience. More information is here.
On Thursday, March 7, Karimi will spend the day with students at Tompkins Cortland Community College and Ithaca College. She will be at Cinemapolis at 6:30 p.m. for a public screening of her first feature fiction film, Hava, Maryam, Ayesha.
The film, which was Afghanistan’s entry for the 2019 Oscars, braids together the stories of three women from very different backgrounds confronting personal crises in modern-day Kabul. Karimi will be available after the film for a Q&A. Free tickets will be available on the Cinemapolis website and at the box office.
Sahraa Karimi is an acclaimed filmmaker with international success as a screenwriter, director, and professor. She is the first woman ever to head Afghan Films as its Director-General. Karimi’s filmography includes works such as Afghan Women Behind the Wheel (2009), and Hava, Maryam, Ayesha (2019). Karimi was an inaugural fellow of the New University in Exile Consortium’s University in Exile for Afghan Artists program.