PARIS (AP) \u2014 As a filmmaker, Shahrbanoo Sadat watched with fascination as Taliban fighters took over her city and terrified crowds animated the streets. But as an Afghan woman, she also watched the scene through another prism and knew: It was time to flee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After her family\u2019s harrowing escape from Kabul, Sadat is now warning world governments: \u201cThe Taliban is a terrorist group and the world should realize they are dangerous,\u201d she told The Associated Press in Paris on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m losing my belief in democracy, in human rights, in women\u2019s rights,\u201d she said, because she feels that Western countries aren\u2019t doing enough to defend these things in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sadat, whose first film \u201cWolf and Sheep\u201d won an award linked to the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, and nine family members were among thousands of Afghans brought out by foreign governments before\u00a0the last U.S. troops pulled out last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They spent 72 hours in line at the Kabul airport, fighting to get out. The first night, Afghan troops \u201cwere very aggressive, shooting from 6 p.m. until 10 a.m. We couldn\u2019t go forward, even a few meters.\u201d So the family tried another gate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe slept in a queue, moving every five minutes a few centimeters,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Taliban forces pulled out the corpses of 11 people who had been crushed to death in the desperate crowd, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Once in France, she was taken to an abandoned building in a Paris suburb that the government hastily converted into temporary shelter for those fleeing Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor three days, we were in complete quarantine so we couldn\u2019t go anywhere. I didn\u2019t have internet,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen they released us, we had only two hours and I ran to the mobile shop to get a SIM card. But other people, they went to the Eiffel Tower,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was angry because … we lost a country and people seemed to me very careless,\u201d thinking about tourism instead of their homeland, she said. \u201cBut on the other hand, we already lost it, so what is the point of crying?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sadat joined a protest Sunday by aid groups and others demanding that Western governments do more to help those left behind and put pressure on the Taliban. Some Afghans who have been struggling for years to get asylum joined the demonstration, along with those who recently arrived.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sadat is worried about relatives still in Afghanistan \u2014 and about one of her actors, who stayed in his native Panjshir province to try to defend Afghanistan\u2019s last remaining pocket of resistance to the Taliban, which\u00a0stepped up its assault of the region Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Taliban have sought to recast themselves as different from when they ruled in the 1990s, when they blocked women and girls from working and education and banned television and music. But many are skeptical that will hold true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sadat said differences were palpable before she left. She described a vendor refusing to sell her ice cream because Taliban fighters stood nearby \u2014 enjoying the same ice cream she was denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey didn\u2019t look at me but I looked at them … like a film director doing a casting,\u201d she said. \u201cBut as an individual, I was so scared.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fellow female Afghan filmmakers who fled the Taliban\u00a0begged the world not to forget the Afghan people, warning at the Venice Film Festival on Saturday that a country without culture will eventually lose its identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sadat hopes to join her sister and partner in Germany, and revive work on her latest film, a romantic comedy. She remains determined to make films despite her exile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to talk about Afghanistan\u2019s war from an Afghan perspective, and a feminine perspective,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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