Golshifteh Farahani Is a Widow Fighting the Exploitation of Kids as the Taliban Nears Kabul in ‘When She Hears the Bells’ (Exclusive Clip and Chat)

Golshifteh Farahani‘s (Alpha, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, The Pear Tree) new film, writer-director Chabname Zariab’s debut feature When She Hears the Bells (Les Clochettes de Kaboul), is both a thriller and a call to stand up for human rights.

France-based Iranian actress Farahani stars as Leila, a young widow seeking a fresh start in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. But she soon finds out that the kitchen, in which she finds work, is a so-called bacha bazi house. These are establishments in which boys and young men are forced to dress in women’s clothes and dance for entertainment – and for sexual and other exploitation. At the same time – it is 2021 – the Taliban is moving closer and closer to Kabul. Leila tries to flee and also help a group of boys escape before the city falls. Sayed Hashimi (13 Days, 13 Nights) co-stars in the film, which includes images actually shot in Afghanistan.

When She Hears the Bells premieres in the First Feature Competition of the 30th edition of the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) in Estonia.

Pierre Cottereau handled cinematography, while the editors are Xavier Sirven, Héloïse Pelloquet and Julie Duclaux. Zariab directed When She Hears the Bells, which she co-wrote with her sister Parande Zariab. Produced by France’s Alta Rocca Films with Germany’s Starhaus Filmproduktion, Belgium’s Versus Production and Arte France Cinema, the film will be distributed in France by Le Pacte, in Germany by Grandfilm and O’Brother in Belgium. Le Pacte is handling sales.

Writer-director Zariab, an Afghan creative based in Paris, wanted to take on repression across society. About bacha bazi, she says: “It is a symbolic reflection of the state of this society, where laws enforce the separation of men and women and leave room for certain abuses, of which this is one of the most appalling.”

And she adds: “The story also highlights the reality for women both before the Taliban’s return and since August 2021, when millions saw their rights erased and the world largely looked away. For me, telling this story is both a personal responsibility and an act of quiet resistance.”

THR can now exclusively premiere a clip from When She Hears the Bells before sharing an email interview with Zariab about the film and how it mixes genre elements with a cinematic tribute to solidarity and the bonds forged when standing shoulder-to-shoulder to protect human rights and the vulnerable. Watch the exclusive clip right here.

And here is what the writer-director says about When She Hears the Bells.

Where did you shoot most of the film? And I heard you also shot parts in Afghanistan. What can you share about that?

We had first considered shooting in Iraqi Kurdistan, whose landscapes and faces strongly resemble Afghanistan’s. We went on location [with] scouts there, then changed course at the last minute because of the bombings between Iran and Israel in 2024. The film was ultimately shot almost entirely in Casablanca, Morocco.

Some of the images were indeed shot in Kabul, because I wanted authentic footage of that city. It was essential. But it was out of the question for us to go there. So I called a friend who is a cinematographer in Afghanistan — I’m not giving his name, for his safety — and we worked remotely. I would send him screenshots of my film so that the wide shots would blend well with the images I had shot in Morocco, or I would ask him to go to neighborhoods and roads that I know. These images are mainly wide shots, meant to capture landscapes and neighborhoods, so that the film rings true without exposing the people who live there.

Why did you want to tell a feature film story about bacha bazi in Afghanistan and what does the practice of bacha bazi say about life and society there?

I am very sensitive to the cause of children and animals, whom I consider to be the most vulnerable beings in the world. It must be said that bacha bazi is not the subject of the film but the arena in which we follow the journey of an Afghan woman, Leila, played by Golshifteh Farahani, who tries to save children before everything collapses in the Kabul of 2021.

Coming back to bacha bazi, it is a practice that has existed in the region for centuries. It has disappeared completely in some countries. It was also on its way to disappearing in Afghanistan. When I was a child, in the 1980s, the practice existed in remote areas but no longer in the big cities. Then came the Taliban’s arrival in 1996 — the moment when my family and I left the country where I was born to settle in France — and it was completely banned, according to many reports, such as one by the NGO The New Humanitarian.

But it surged again with the arrival of American troops, who had been ordered to turn a blind eye to bacha bazi in order to win over Afghan warlords. This scandal was confirmed years later by journalistic investigations, as well as by official Pentagon reports in 2017. Little by little, having “a bacha” — literally, having “a boy” — became a social marker, a sign of wealth and power. Today, according to the Afghan press, such as Amu TV, “the new Taliban” have “adopted” the practice. According to its journalists, the perpetrators are rarely prosecuted.

Above all, it reveals the impunity that persists thanks to the influence of those who practice it. Bacha bazi is only one symptom among others of a violent society that separates women from the social landscape, and therefore from desires. Imagine a society in which men and women live separately and are not allowed to cross paths. To me, that is quite frightening.

You made a short film about bacha bazi that was focused on the boys. I love that your feature film also shows us women’s lives and difficulties. How important was it for you to show us this women’s perspective, both before and after the Taliban’s return, and what do you hope audiences will take away from the film?

My short film focused on the boys because my concern at the time was what children endure, in my country of origin as elsewhere. A child who grows up in fear or violence carries the marks for life, and it is through childhood that a nation’s destiny is shaped.

When the Taliban took Kabul in 2021, I was developing another project, set in Paris but still tied to Afghanistan. I decided to abandon it in order to make a film set in the country. I could not ignore the cause of women, who already held a fragile place in that society and whom the Taliban are trying to erase more and more. Today, women are no longer allowed to work and girls are no longer admitted to school beyond the age of 12. What I hope audiences take away is the distress of an entire society. I believe my country is going through a very deep collective suffering. It was a deliberate choice to show the period before the fall of Kabul from a woman’s point of view, because the period after, the whole world has seen on the news, and still sees today.

I also wanted the film to end on that collapse, and on the question of those who leave, because fleeing horror when everything is falling apart is both a positive escape for Leila, the character, and no guarantee of a peaceful life afterward. I’m thinking of Dheepan by Jacques Audiard, which begins on the other side of the fence.

How did you get Golshifteh Farahani to star in the film? She brings so many layers and dimensions to her role.

The hardest part was making contact with Golshifteh. It took several months. The first time I saw her was in About Elly by Asghar Farhadi. I held on to her image for a long time. Then I followed her work in Chicken With Plums by Marjane Satrapi and later in The Patience Stone (Syngué Sabour) by Atiq Rahimi, where she played an Afghan woman and spoke Afghan Persian almost perfectly. That is also one of the films that made me feel this character could only be for her.

Her commitment to women’s causes mattered just as much, because it echoed what I wanted to tell. So I waited until she agreed to meet me. Once she learned about the subject, she accepted very quickly. She is an extraordinary actress and an extraordinary woman. She was incredibly supportive on set. Many of my actors were non-professionals or came from the theater. Golshifteh not only mastered her own performance but also guided the other actors, and almost choreographed her movements with the children to help them act and to keep takes from being interrupted.

She is a woman who breaks down barriers, and we were on the same page about that. In the evenings, we sometimes gathered in one another’s apartments to play music and sing. Golshifteh can play many instruments. One of the actresses was also a singer, and we had other musicians in the group. Those evenings were incredible, full of emotion. We were Afghans and Iranians together, united by what we had in common: our culture and our exile. And Golshifteh was also key in fostering that cohesion. It was beautiful!

How did you decide on the title for the film ‘When She Hears the Bells,’ or ‘The Bells of Kabul’ in France?

My short film was called Au bruit des clochettes (At the Sound of the Little Bells), and its English version was When You Hear the Bells. The feature film also tells the story of the country. It is a story within history. For the French version, I wanted to put Kabul in the title and keep “the little bells,” which are somewhat enigmatic — for a Westerner, you don’t know what the little bells are. People from the East — Iranians, Afghans, and so on — know exactly what it refers to.

It was interesting, in fact, because during casting, some of the people we contacted refused to audition simply upon learning the title. They knew exactly what it was about: the little bells are bacha bazi. And they refused because the subject is too taboo, too sensitive. For the English version, since Leila ends up in a bacha bazi house, When She Hears the Bells seemed right to me because it puts the female character back at the center. It is her own story, the story of an ordinary woman who becomes a heroine and whose journey becomes extraordinary.

Is there anything you would like to mention?

Thank you. This film was born out of a concern. If audiences come away with a better understanding of what Afghan women, and Afghans more broadly, are living through today, and with the feeling that this suffering deserves to be faced head-on, then it will have done its part. Because indeed, today, the world has once again abandoned this country to its fate. There are so many misfortunes and new conflicts that have emerged that people no longer talk about this population. It was important to me to make this film in order to shine a light on them.

For the financing, we received the trust of many partners, who were moved by the subject and convinced of the necessity of this story. Now I hope the film will find an echo and a distribution commensurate with the importance I attach to it.

Right now, winter is beginning, and the country’s economic situation is catastrophic. People struggle to feed themselves and to heat their homes. Children are dying of malnutrition in some regions. There is no work, no real future. There is also a cultural genocide: attempts are being made to erase the Persian language and other languages in favor of Pashto, the language spoken by most of the Taliban.

Very recently I read that in a Hazara neighborhood — the ethnic group to which the character Marie in my film belongs, as one of the two friends at the hair salon — the Taliban gave families 72 hours to leave their homes. Homes that they had bought, and that are now being confiscated from them. This shows that the persecution of the Hazara also continues with complete impunity. Not a day goes by that I don’t follow what is happening there.

I have a deep love for this wounded country and its people. Afghanistan is a country of many ethnic groups, some of which try to crush the others while defending themselves against outside aggression, all in the most brutal poverty. Yolande Zauberman ended her documentary M with a quotation from Franz Kafka: “I am among my own with a knife to protect them, I am among my own with a knife to attack them.” I think I could have borrowed it too.