KABUL // A young bride silently sobs on the floor watching her mentally disturbed husband gorge on chicken, rub his greasy hands through his hair and scream at her for more, just another chapter in the couple's violent life together.
The film director Saba Sahar anxiously watches the scene by the cameraman, squatting in blue jeans and wearing a bright pink headscarf. "Cut!" she calls.
The first Afghan woman in her profession, Sahar, 36, has become a household name after acting and directing for more than half her life. She is adored by Afghan women.
Like other Afghan directors, Sahar says finding actresses is her top challenge in a country where many view acting as un-Islamic and inappropriate for women.
Deba Barekzai, 19, who plays the young bride in Sahar's 15-part television series, says: "Some Afghans think cinema is a bad place for girls. Working in cinema has caused me lots of problems and difficulties."
She spoke during a break in filming in a mud and straw house on Kabul's outskirts, her eyes still glistening from a red onion used to force tears in her last scene.
Her family judged it too dangerous for her to train in Afghanistan because of disapproving relatives and the Taliban, so Barekzai went to neighbouring Iran to study acting.
The Afghan-Canadian director Nelofer Pariza said family pressure stopped several of her actresses from showing up on set when filming 2009's An Act of Dishonour, a true story about an honour killing.
"It was really sad. Fear would actually stop them from coming to work," Pariza told the audience last month after the film's first public screening in Afghanistan.
A film within a film, An Act of Dishonour revolves around the fate of an Afghan actress who starred in a film made by Pariza's colleague. Upon discovering his wife had taken part in a film, the husband shot her dead.
She is played by the actress Marina Golbahari, who achieved global fame from her role as a young girl dressed as a boy in the Afghan film Osama and now studies acting in India.
Pariza and Sahar are among a handful of female Afghan directors who focus on violence against women in a bid to both employ women on screen and expose their plight.
Nine years ago Sahar set up her production company, Saba Film, with this aim.
"I have two messages for Afghan women and girls. First they should never think they are weak; second, they must have self-confidence," said Sahar, whose frank and orderly manner hints at her past as one of Afghanistan's few policewomen.
Called The Green Leaves of Autumn, her new series evokes hope in the unlikely.
The bride is subject to baad, an Afghan tradition in which a woman is given as compensation for a crime. Though illegal it is widespread, causing outcry from international rights groups.
In the narrative, she is given to her husband after her brother guns down his relative in a duel. Her family honour is restored, but she is beaten, sexually abused and forced to slave away for a man she despises.
Later, the young woman's brother avenges his sister, and stabs the mentally ill husband to death.
"This is an example of just one of the many problems Afghan women face in today's society," Sahar said.
Further complicating their challenges are the threats the film industry receives from a resurgent Taliban, which banned television and women from most work before their rule was toppled by US-backed Afghan forces a decade ago.
Amid escalating violence across Afghanistan in the 10th year of fighting in the Nato-led war, fear of the Taliban is present across many sectors of society.
The Afghan film industry says suicide attacks and bombs threaten the livelihood of its cinema just as much as its lack of quality equipment.
Latif Ahmadi, a much-loved director and the head of Afghan Film, the state-run cinema agency, says: "These are the reasons our cinema today cannot improve."
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Omar Yabroudi's factfile
Born: October 20, 1989, Sharjah
Education: Bachelor of Science and Football, Liverpool John Moores University
2010: Accrington Stanley FC, internship
2010-2012: Crystal Palace, performance analyst with U-18 academy
2012-2015: Barnet FC, first-team performance analyst/head of recruitment
2015-2017: Nottingham Forest, head of recruitment
2018-present: Crystal Palace, player recruitment manager
ADCC AFC Women’s Champions League Group A fixtures
October 3: v Wuhan Jiangda Women’s FC
October 6: v Hyundai Steel Red Angels Women’s FC
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If you go
The flights
The closest international airport for those travelling from the UAE is Denver, Colorado. British Airways (www.ba.com) flies from the UAE via London from Dh3,700 return, including taxes. From there, transfers can be arranged to the ranch or it’s a seven-hour drive. Alternatively, take an internal flight to the counties of Cody, Casper, or Billings
The stay
Red Reflet offers a series of packages, with prices varying depending on season. All meals and activities are included, with prices starting from US$2,218 (Dh7,150) per person for a minimum stay of three nights, including taxes. For more information, visit red-reflet-ranch.net.
T20 World Cup Qualifier A, Muscat
Friday, February 18: 10am - Oman v Nepal, Canada v Philippines; 2pm - Ireland v UAE, Germany v Bahrain
Saturday, February 19: 10am - Oman v Canada, Nepal v Philippines; 2pm - UAE v Germany, Ireland v Bahrain
Monday, February 21: 10am - Ireland v Germany, UAE v Bahrain; 2pm - Nepal v Canada, Oman v Philippines
Tuesday, February 22: 2pm – semi-finals
Thursday, February 24: 2pm – final
UAE squad: Ahmed Raza (captain), Muhammad Waseem, Chirag Suri, Vriitya Aravind, Rohan Mustafa, Kashif Daud, Zahoor Khan, Alishan Sharafu, Raja Akifullah, Karthik Meiyappan, Junaid Siddique, Basil Hameed, Zafar Farid, Mohammed Boota, Mohammed Usman, Rahul Bhatia
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Ambition: To create awareness among young about people with disabilities and make the world a more inclusive place
Job Title: Human resources administrator, Expo 2020 Dubai
First jobs: Co-ordinator with Magrudy Enterprises; HR coordinator at Jumeirah Group
Entrepreneur: Started his own graphic design business
Favourite singer: Avril Lavigne
Favourite travel destination: Germany and Saudi Arabia
Family: Six sisters
Europe’s rearming plan
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- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
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Stree
Producer: Maddock Films, Jio Movies
Director: Amar Kaushik
Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Shraddha Kapoor, Pankaj Tripathi, Aparshakti Khurana, Abhishek Banerjee
Rating: 3.5
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Power: 218hp (Cooper and Aceman), 313hp (Countryman)
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Glossary of a stock market revolution
Reddit
A discussion website
Redditor
The users of Reddit
Robinhood
A smartphone app for buying and selling shares
Short seller
Selling a stock today in the belief its price will fall in the future
Short squeeze
Traders forced to buy a stock they are shorting
Naked short
An illegal practice
Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
