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. At 14, Asal is excited about her engagement.
Her relatives all have their own opinions A teen girl hits a crossroads in this stirring portrait of rural Iran How it looked to Afghan women to see the Taliban return to power In an act of resistance, Elahe forgoes a hijab at a family party Resilience and ingenuity – a Tajik teacher’s hydroelectric station made from Soviet scraps A reporter orphaned by night raids in Afghanistan investigates their cruel legacy Living out of a truck, Maikhuu finds promise and peril on Mongolia’s ‘coal highway’ While Mümine thinks about boys and school, her parents want an arranged marriage A rural Indian girl learns agricultural skills to gain financial independence
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