Philosophy Science Psychology Society Culture Essays Videos Popular About DONATE NEWSLETTER MENU / / Aeon DONATE / NEWSLETTER / SIGN IN / Hills and mountains 8 minutes Jo Marchant: In search of now 58 minutes The Amarna letters 42 minutes Great art explained: Tamara in the green Bugatti 16 minutes Bhutan: the last place 10 minutes When it started to burn 36 minutes A vocabulary for the future: nature 6 minutes The secrets of Hohle Fels cave 11 minutes Into the fire 24 minutes Africa’s cultural landmarks: tombs of Buganda kings 11 minutes Evolution of Manhattan 8 minutes I won’t remain alone 15 minutes EXCLUSIVE Save Share An Afghan woman recalls how her country’s devastation led to her own Save Directed by the Afghan-born Canadian filmmaker Salar Pashtoonyar, Hills and Mountains recalls how the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 upended life in the once-stable country. The story is told from the perspective of a woman whose identity Pashtoonyar has protected by using a voice actor and altering some details of her life. Born in 1969, she describes seeing the ‘peaceful and tolerant’ homeland of her childhood deteriorate into a place where parents married off their teenage daughters to keep them from starving. Ultimately, a false accusation of an affair led to her own forced marriage and shattered her family life. Pashtoonyar pairs her narration with sweeping scenes from the mountainous country, drawing out the intersections between landscape, lived experience and global history.
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