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Why Kyiv became a refuge for an Afghan filmmaker
Summary
A look back at 17 August 2021, when an evacuation from Kabul ended in the Ukrainian capital, and at a death in Kryvyi Rih two days earlier.
What brought a leading Afghan film executive to Kyiv on 17 August 2021? The answer lay in the fall of Kabul to the Taliban. Sahraa Karimi, a well-known Afghan director and the general director of the state film company Afghan Film, was evacuated from Afghanistan to the Ukrainian capital after the Taliban took the city.
The evacuation placed Kyiv in the story of the Afghan crisis through one person's escape. Karimi's position at the head of the state film company meant that the change of power in Kabul directly affected her work and her safety. Her arrival in Ukraine was reported on 17 August 2021.
A separate loss in Kryvyi Rih
Ukrainian news on the same days was not only about Afghanistan. On 15 August 2021, the mayor of Kryvyi Rih, Kostiantyn Pavlov, was found dead in his home. The two events were unconnected, but both were part of the news Ukrainians were following in mid-August 2021: one an arrival from a collapsing capital abroad, the other a death in a major city at home.
