Texas - Kabul (engl)

Helga Reidemeister was born in Halle (Saale) in 1940. After her schooling in Cologne, she studied painting at the College of Arts in Berlin, and worked as a restorer after her graduation in 1965. The student movement led to a revision in her life: Reidemeister became a social worker in the Berlin satellite town "Maerkisches Viertel". It was the women living there who inspired her to make films: in 1973 she began her studies at the German Academy of Film and Television (dffb) in Berlin and then realized her first projects (including Der gekaufte Traum, 1974-1977) together with residents of the "Maerkisches Viertel".
She gained an international reputation as a director with her graduation film Is This Fate? (Von wegen &Mac226;Schicksal‘, 1979), winning various prizes – including the German Film Award – for this portrait of a mother who rebels against her role in society. The film was the subject of considerable debate and became
an important impulse for the development of documentary cinema in Germany. Whether presenting the everyday life of a model in Eyes Fixed on the Money (Mit starrem Blick aufs Geld, 1983), questioning the continuing existence of political utopias in Walking Tall: Rudi Dutsche – Trails (Aufrecht Gehen: Rudi Dutschke – Spuren, 1988), investigating – in Rodina Means Home (Rodina heisst Heimat, 1992) – the perspectives for the future lives of Soviet soldiers withdrawing from Germany, or raising the question of relative guilt and atonement in God’s Cell – A Women’s Prison (Gotteszell – Ein Frauengefaengnis, which peremiered in the Berlinale Forum in 2001). Reidemeister’s
award-winning films reveal the balance of power within society that determines the lives of individuals, especially those of women. With her latest project, TEXAS – KABUL (a co-production with the broadcasters WDR, SWR and ARTE), Reidemeister portrays women from Afghanistan, India, Serbia and the
USA who demonstrate their opposition to nationalism and war.

CONTENT: This film is a political road movie. It is a journey around the whole planet in search of meaning in times of war, and at the same time a journey
into the film maker's own past. Destroyed Kabul calls forth memories of the devastated German cities after the Second World War. This is a film about an inner as well as outer state of emergency.
Disquieted by the announcement of wars which followed the tragedy of September 11th in New York, the film maker sets out on her journey, looking for allies who act sensibly despite the general panic which has broken out. She finds four women in four different countries.
Her first encounter takes place in New Delhi, India. There she meets 43-yearold Arundhati Roy who, after creating the world-bestseller "The God of Small Things", has stopped writing novels in order to involve herself in the struggle against war and globalisation.
In Serbia, the film director visits an old friend, 50-year-old Stasha Zayovic, who, during the Miloshevic dictatorship, founded "Women in Black". For many years, this group was the only voice of reason to be heard in a country dominated by nationalists running amok.
The next encounter takes place in Kabul. The horror of the recent past there is related by 45-year-old Jamila Mujahed, editor of "Malalai", the only women's
magazine in Afghanistan. The film's last encounter is with the American Sissy Farenthold in Houston.
Sissy Farenthold, a 76-year-old former law professor and politician, ended her political career after the Vietnam War to work for human rights issues.
Originating from a sense of alarm, this film provokes unrest and calls for action.

Germany, 2004, DigiBeta, 93 Min., col.