Weekend With... is a series that offers audiences the chance to dive deep into the work of a filmmaker, actor, or key creative over the course of one weekend.

Born in Iran, after her parents had fled Afghanistan, Shahrbanoo Sadat grew up between Tehran and a remote Afghan village. She studied film in Kabul and at 20 years old became the youngest person to ever be selected for the prestigious Cannes Cinéfondation residency in Paris. There, she developed her first narrative feature, Wolf and Sheep, which won the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs prize at Cannes in 2016. Her first foray into fiction was based on the unpublished diaries of Anwar Hashimi (a writer on Wolf and Sheep) and cast an assured and nuanced eye on her native Afghanistan, its legends, traditions, and especially its children.

In the process of casting the film, Sadat discovered Qodratollah Qadiri, which began a collaboration that would continue with The Orphanage, Sadat’s Bollywood-inspired follow-up. Sadat intended to make a pentalogy of films from Hashimi’s journals, and was developing the third installment when in August 2021 she had to escape Taliban-controlled Afghanistan within days of the catastrophic American withdrawal. Despite this, Sadat has said she remains committed to making films that capture the vitality, complexities, and people of her homeland.

Programmed and notes by Kiva Reardon

Weekend with... Shahrbanoo Sadat

Past Screenings in Series