Anisa Sabiri
Filmmaker, Photographer, Writer
Tajikistan
“If one has a passion for art, and a topic that must be delivered, this artist will find a way.”
At age 13, Sabiri started publishing poems – which are, in a sense – philosophical attempts to realize herself in a complex world, where the system is dead and injustice is rife.
At the same time, she was working as a freelance reporter for the Central Asian news agency Asia Plus. “Already back then, I realized that I can not publish everything I want to say, and I had a lot to criticize about the system,” Sabiri remembers. She became interested in the political and philosophical aspects of freedom and later went on to study law in Moscow. In the poetry of those years, Sabiri touches upon the problems of Tajik labor migration in Russia, the difficulties of being a citizen, non-observance of constitutional rights, as well as the difficult conditions faced by the intelligentsia of her generation.
Director Sabiri filming with her cameraman, 2018. Source: Sputnik News.
In 2016, Sabiri was invited by the Tajik Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet, named by Sadriddin Ayni in Dushanbe, to write a libretto for the first national ballet, dedicated to the 20th anniversary of the independence of Tajikistan. Within two weeks, she transformed the enormous Tajik-Iranian epos Shahname by Abulqasim Firdawsi into a libretto. At the same time, the Tajik Ministry of Culture announced the demolition of the Mayakovski drama theatre, a fate that many Soviet-era buildings in the capital have faced before. Sabiri responded with an article defending the theatre’s cultural significance and critiquing the country’s rampant corruption and bribery which she viewed as detrimental to the Tajik people. After submitting the text to news platforms, she boarded a plane for a conference in Saint Petersburg.
Movie poster, "The Crying of Tanbur", 2018. Source: Festagent.
Based on a true story, The Crying of Tanbur tells how the son of a killed journalist attempts to take over his father’s role. The boy supports the family while helping his mother through her depression, and shielding his little sister from the fact that the father was killed. Sabiri and her team presented the film at festivals around the world, including the Brooklyn Imagine This Women’s International Film Festival, where the film received an award in the category Best Young Woman Storyteller.
“I am determined to be an artist. I can’t afford to lose my freedom to create.”
Sabiri’s commitment to film comes from her belief that film is a subtle yet deeply engaging way to address suppressed experiences. In addition to reconnecting the Tajik people with their cultural heritage and history, art because of its universality speaks to a global audience. Viewers worldwide have embraced The Crying of Tanbur and hope to hear more stories from Tajikistan. Despite the intimidation she faces, Sabiri cannot be silenced.
By Lena Schubert, January 2019. Lena is a Cultural Studies major and Art History minor at the Humboldt University in Berlin and studied abroad with the Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program in New York City.
The following poems are courtesy of Sabiri:
1. It seemed to me, that the cause of light is darkness, With mad chambers in the shower in abundance,
That the wall became more solid, Not bent over the ceiling,
and under the thicker floors, and in front of another wall,
Absorbing space, including thoughts … It seemed to me, that someone turned off the light,
That it simply died for a while, And, that existence is not driven out of the mind –
The one, which is odd… Which prevents to become
Buddha, Siddhartha,
With you, Extremely honest, in dialogue with life..
‘’..We were waiting for death, but our child born in torment
overripe pomegranate, sprinkled our roads with the blood of separation
no longer it recognize us, as the blood has already been covered
with the golden dust of autumn .. and I searched in vain for these traces ..’’
***
“..No more rhyme can be found to the sorrow of this world.. It dissolved in whitewash and leaked through the eye mirror.
Hey, mad Wanderer, I scream to the moth, fluttering under the amethyst lamp – why do you rush from light to light –
this lamp bites your wings just like mine but you fly towards it yourself, and I run from it..’’
2. In this lake, where gold is hidden, Hiding also the voiceless dumb fish..
and the gold in the world is over, and the world has ended alchemy,
and magic became a craft, which is not able to create good anymore….
in this lake we remained fish – voiceless dumb fish, hiding in vain
worthless gold, like the worst thieves.
In this fish-infested lake until the world collapses from hunger and our brothers are starved to death,
and from hating each other, accusing each other of stealing, meanings … in this lake
no life left, a life in it
has clogged up, and we are corked, being a fish
which silently shout, which is silently yelling
about its worthlessness, imitating the birds…
considering, that we are birds, looking
on the fins …