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The next day she went to the bank.
"(Suddenly) we saw Taliban cars with white flags ... and ...
we're running," Sadat told Reuters in an interview. "And that
was for me like a moment of a movie that couldn't be real
because I was in the middle of Kabul."
Accompanied by nine family members, Sadat, whose first feature
film "Wolf and Sheep" won the main prize at Cannes festival
Directors' Fortnight section in 2016, eventually headed for
Kabul airport. They arrived in Paris earlier this week.
"I was lucky but this is not the situation for many people," she
said, referring to the crowds stranded at the airport. "They do
not speak English, they are not a filmmaker, they don't have any
international friends and their life is in danger."
Sadat said it took 72 hours from her leaving her apartment to
reaching French troops at Kabul airport, where she spent a night
at their compound before flying to Abu Dhabi.
She described chaotic scenes while queuing outside the airport.
"(The Taliban) wanted to (make people queue) which was
impossible because the crowd was pushing from all directions and
Taliban were walking with cables and with guns and with even
with (an) RPG," she said.
"Children were crying and the old people were fainting ...
because it was so hot."
Overwhelmed by the heat and slow pace, Sadat said she nearly
gave up queuing but was encouraged to keep going by her sister.
Sadat said she saw men, including her father, singled out amid
rumours of attacks.
"(A Taliban member) wanted to take him out and I threw myself on
my father and he hit me with the cable that he had on my back
... they were so aggressive with men but they didn't really
touch the women," she said. "He let us go."
Kabul airport has been thronged with Afghans trying to board
evacuation flights following the Taliban's takeover, fearing
reprisals and a return to a harsh version of Islamic law the
group practised when it was last in power.
Dozens were killed in an Islamic State suicide attack https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/i-saw-doomsday-says-kabul-airport-blast-survivor-2021-08-26
on Thursday.
The Taliban has sought to assure the crowds at Kabul airport
that they have nothing to fear and should go home.
Sadat, who was born in Iran and moved to Afghanistan in December
2001, was working on a romantic comedy before fleeing.
"I have all kind of mixed feelings ... I don't understand all
this. Everything was so sudden and so quick," Sadat, whose films
depict ordinary life, said.
"I want to continue making films but perhaps my point of view is
changed ... The political thing displaced me so I cannot ignore
it anymore because I am hurt by that."
(Reporting by Lucien Libert; Writing by Marie-Louise Gumuchian;
Editing by Alex Richardson)
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