Berlinale 2026 | Director Shahrbanoo Sadat on her rom-com No Good Men, set in Kabul

Most films about women’s problems are dark and grim. But you show varied emotions in No Good Men.

or me, it happened very organically. It was never an agenda that, oh, I want to make a lighter film about [Afghan] women. I think my inspiration was my everyday life in Kabul, which was not sad, not depressing. Yes, I lived in a society that is deeply patriarchal, and there is a system that is broken, and has a lot of restrictions on women. But I would find my own way.

Like me, even for Naru, who lives in a bubble, there is a ceiling on her freedom whenever she encounters authorities, the system or the laws. But it doesn’t mean that women are accepting it. I’ve just made a short film about women going to a gym, called Super Afghan Gym. We premiered it in Rotterdam [International Film Festival Rotterdam] before coming to Berlin.

A lot of women in Afghanistan wrote to me on social media saying that ‘since the Taliban are back, we cannot go to school, we cannot go to work, but we secretly go to the gym and we make muscles, and this is the highlight of our day, because that’s the only thing we can do’. It breaks my heart. But I love these women. They are my heroes.

I have faced resistance from potential funders who actually question the appropriateness of making an Afghan romantic comedy like this. They feel it’s inappropriate to support this rom-com while brave Afghan women are fighting in the streets of Kabul.

It is as if a romantic comedy is reserved for white people. And, secondly, they tell the Afghan artist what kind of art you can create. Making a romantic comedy was a battle inside and outside.

Is the title an exploration of the possibility of good men in real life?

Until my early 20s, I really believed that there’s no good man in Afghanistan. That was something I experienced, it was coming from my reality, or that of every woman I knew, met or encountered. On a bus once, a woman sitting next to me asked: are you married? I said ‘no’. And she said, ‘good. There’s no good man in Afghanistan’. So, I realised that this is a collective experience of women. When I got my first job in one of the top TV channels in Kabul, as a producer, not as a camerawoman like Naru, I met Anwar [Hashimi, actor]. Anwar was a journalist covering business news. He told me about his love story, and I found it very fascinating. When I met him, I was very confused, because I thought there is some conspiracy going on. It cannot be true, a man who treats me equally, who respects my idea, who asks for my opinion. I thought that he has a plot and I should be very careful. But Anwar changed my mindset. I met a lot of other good men when I was casting for my debut film, ‘Wolf and Sheep’.

What is home to you?

In Iran, I was always told that I’m Afghan and I should go back to Afghanistan. But I was born in Iran, it was home, I didn’t know why I should go back to Afghanistan, a place I didn’t know. In Iran, I was called Afghani, which is a very humiliating word. And when we went back to Afghanistan with my parents, they called me Iranian. So, they told me go back to Iran. And for a very long time, I had this identity crisis because I didn’t know where I belonged. When I came to Germany, suddenly, I had a new identity. I was a foreigner, a refugee. And then I realised that Afghani, Iranian, refugee, foreigner — they are all identities imposed on me by the outside world. I’ve been the same person in all these places. I realised that Iran, Afghanistan, and Germany are my home. I’m a human being with lived experiences in different countries. At this point in my life, I’m beyond nationality. It doesn’t mean anything to me.

Berlinale jury president Wim Wenders recently spoke against mixing politics with films. What are your thoughts?

I also heard that. But, I can only tell you my perspective. There is an expectation from the world for me to be a political filmmaker just because I’m from Afghanistan. But I do not want this identity. I just want to be a filmmaker. And a filmmaker can make political films, but also rom-coms that have nothing to do with politics. I want to be a free filmmaker who can decide the content. When I’m starting a project, I don’t know what my film is about. It took me three years and 12 drafts of the script before I understood that my film is about patriarchy.

A lot of people also ask me, are you a feminist filmmaker? That is yet another label. Yes, I’m proudly a feminist. I think everyone should be. But I don’t like to be defined by labels. I’m a filmmaker because of all the life experiences of racist and sexist patriarchy I have had to face. For me, filmmaking is like therapy. While playing Naru, I literally met myself. I always thought I’m broken, I’m not enough, I’m not good, and if I go in front of the camera, the whole world is going to see that I’m horrible. I was very insecure, but just playing Naru helped me see myself. Cinema gives me freedom.

Will Afghan audiences get to see the film?

Everyone has a smartphone and Internet. They are going to steal the film, put it on YouTube, or chop it and put it on TikTok or Telegram, but they will watch it. I’m keeping my expectations really low, I don’t think they are going to receive it too well, because, first of all, I’m a woman. How dare I talk? And then I’m saying, ‘no good man’, that perhaps I’m a lesbian. That I think men are horrible. These are the kind of comments I’m expecting. But a lot of women will relate.