Beldocs Hosting Afghan Director Ilyas Yourish in Belgrade

The Beldocs festival is hosting the official cinema premiere of the multi-awarded documentary Kamay by Afghan director Ilyas Yourish at Kulturni Centar Beograd on Tuesday, December 3, at 8 p.m. Ilyas Yourish, who is currently residing in Belgium, will be a guest at the discussion following the screening.

The next day, Wednesday, December 4, at 7 p.m. at the Europe House in Belgrade, the movie will be screened as part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence campaign. There will be a conversation with the director before the showing.

Intensely emotional and with multiple layers, Kamay is a remarkable poetic account of death, women’s resistance, and tradition in the mountains of Afghanistan. It tells the story of a Hazara family seeking justice for their daughters under the newly established Taliban government in Kabul in 2021. This event sparked revolt and the only documented protests against the Taliban at Kabul University.

The Hazara are among the numerous ethnic groups living in the mountainous regions of central Afghanistan. In the late 19th century, this group suffered a terrible fate when their population was halved due to persecution. In the mid-1990s, they faced a similar fate when the Taliban seized Kabul, where the Hazaras resisted subjugation and revolted by joining the Northern Alliance. During this period, the Taliban reinstated their brutal program of genocide against the Hazara until their liberation in 2001. The short period of freedom and renewal in Afghanistan, during which the Hazaras assumed significant government roles, including the appointment of the first female mayor in the history of the country, was interrupted by the withdrawal of American forces and the return of the Taliban regime in 2021.

The film Kamay had its world premiere at the festival Visions du Reel in Nyon, and it was also screened at the BFI London Film Festival, DMZ Docs in Seoul, Berlin, Florence, Munchen, and over 20 festivals worldwide.

The film is a part of the Beldocs distribution, which aims to return documentary films to cinemas in Serbia. Beldocs distribution currently offers some of the most notable accomplishments in documentary films, with nominations for awards from the European Film Academy and the prestigious Oscar award.

The ticket for the film screening at Kulturni Centar Beograd is 300 Serbian dinars. A conversation with the filmmaker will follow the film.