The Rehearsal #1: We Deliver the Clouds

In the summer of 2021, the filmmaker was set to shoot a short film archiving her maternal home of three generations in the Kart-e-Parwan neighborhood of Kabul. Due to the chaotic U.S. withdrawal and Taliban transition to power, the project wasn’t realized. In response, a rehearsal unfolds in front of backdrops of the home’s rose garden and living room. The backdrops became alternative spaces of transplanting, remembering, and becoming a home. Small movements, shadows from the sky, improvised dialogue, and occasional laughter towards the camera set the stage for memory-making and domestic rituals.

The series will continue to piece together rehearsals, screen tests, and character and gestural studies across different cities and landscapes of the unrealized short film to create a non-linear tale of a family coming to grips with the death of their bibi, or grandmother. Each rehearsal will be staged in front of or nearby backdrops of different façades of the home.

The first rehearsal was shot on a rooftop in Islamabad, Pakistan by Afghan photographer Hamid Sultani (@hamidsultaniarts) and directed by Zelikha Shoja at a distance via WhatsApp.

Video is in Dari with English subtitles.