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	Political Film Society - Osama
		The film begins with about one hundred women in light blue burkas demonstrating; banners say that they are widows who want to work, as they are hungry, but also say that they are not "political." Soon, fire hoses and rifle shots are fired to disperse them.
		When the mother, a war widow, suggests that her twelve-year-old daughter might pose as a boy named Osama to get education and food, the latter decides to follow the suggestion.
		For the rest of the film, directed by Siddiq Barmak, we see the tragic consequences of her decision to engage in cross-dressing as her actual sex becomes increasingly obvious.
	www.geocities.com /~polfilms/osama.html (304 words)

	'Osama' Film Depicts Girl's Life Under Taliban
		"Osama," screened last week at the Toronto International Film Festival, tells the story of a girl forced to disguise herself as a boy to escape the oppressive conditions that the Taliban, who sheltered Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, inflicted on women.
		Originally, Barmak titled the film "Rainbow," a reference to a legend told by one of the characters that boys passing under a rainbow become girls, and girls change to boys.
		But "Osama," the name of the disguised girl, became the title in the end, Barmak said, because "I saw that this film was about the horror and this is a reaction about the horror."
	www.peacewomen.org /news/Sept03/film.html (604 words)

	Lemar-Aftaab \| www.afghanmagazine.com \| April 2004 \| Vol 3 \| Issue 2 \| Film \| Osama empowers Afghans \| By Nadia Ali ... (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		Osama's suppressed femininity takes the form of her severed braid planted in a flowerpot of soil, at times with an IV drip-feeding it, in hopes to keep her identity alive.
		Consequently, Osama's victory is an impossibility, and we are witnesses to her doom.
		Osama is the first feature shot in Afghanistan since the Taliban, and subsequently, one of the few chances Afghans have had to address the world about life under the repressive regime.
	www.afghanmagazine.com /2004_04/film/osama_review.shtml (914 words)

	Osama (2003) - A Review by David Nusair
		Osama is, as virtually every other review has noted, the first film to be shot in post-Taliban Afghanistan - and while there's no denying the significance of that achievement, it doesn't change the fact that the film simply isn't that good.
		While Osama does a fantastic job of showing us just how awful conditions were under the Taliban, the film's lack of a compelling narrative eventually undermines the positive elements (not to mention their lasting effectiveness).
		Osama unquestionably deals with an important issue, but the sad truth is that potential viewers would be far better off watching a documentary on the rise and fall of the Taliban.
	www.reelfilm.com /osama.htm (507 words)

	Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly . FILM REVIEW . OSAMA . February 13, 2004 \| PBS
		It's called OSAMA -- not for Osama bin Laden, but for an Afghan girl who dresses up as a boy so she can earn money for her family.
		OSAMA is based on the true story of a 12-year-old girl caught in the crucible of Afghanistan's autocratic theocracy.
		OSAMA portrays an essential truth, casting a searing light on those who would use religion to oppress the very people they presume to lead.
	www.pbs.org /wnet/religionandethics/week724/review.html (465 words)

	Hour.ca - Film - Osama
		Osama is a powerful and saddening film set in Afghanistan, following the life of a young girl whose mother and grandmother disguise her as a boy to enable them to survive.
		Osama will certainly not leave you with a happy face, but it will make you think, and realize how lucky we are to live in a much more free society than that portrayed in the film, a society where your luck, even life, depends more on which sex you are born as than anything else.
		Osama is a young girl whose mother and grandmother decide to disguise as a boy so she can get work and provide for her family.And so begins her horrifying journey until she is finally discovered and as punishment given to a mullah as his bride.
	hour.ca /film/film.aspx?iIDArticle=764 (2514 words)

	The Epoch Times :: Afghan Film Osama Tells of Life Under Taleban Cruelty
		WASHINGTON - Afghanistan's first film since the rise and fall of the Taleban portrays that regime's cruelty toward women - who were not allowed to go outside without a male escort and were forced to wear floor-length veiled dresses called burqas.
		The film is called Osama, and tells the story of a young girl who is forced to disguise herself as a boy so she can try to help her mother and grandmother survive by working for the family.
		"Osama begins with an apt epigraph, attributed to Nelson Mandela: 'I can forgive, but I cannot forget.' And although Mandela was speaking of a new South Africa, I think it would be equally applicable to a new Afghanistan," she said.
	en.epochtimes.com /news/4-2-23/19946.html (706 words)

	Osama (2004): Reviews
		Osama's unvarnished vulnerability, along with the director's combination of tough-mindedness and lyricism, prevents the movie from becoming at all sentimental; instead, it is beautiful, thoughtful and almost unbearably sad.
		Effective as a drama as it spirals Golbahari deeper into her nightmarish world, Osama is similarly powerful as a fictionalized account of the Taliban's obscene wish for a world where the stringent enforcement of religious laws took the place of instinctual human kindness.
		"Osama" is a little short, but by the time she arrives at her husband's house, believe me, you can't wait for the film to end.
	www.metacritic.com /film/titles/osama (1706 words)

	Osama Movie Review at Hollywood Video
		Osama has one friend, Espandi (Arif Herati), who knows her secret and tries to protect her, especially when all the local boys—hundreds of them—are rounded up to begin Taliban training, regardless of how they feel about the regime.
		Osama's story is set against the backdrop of the daily world of Taliban-ruled Afghanistan: Women and girls must be covered head to toe, with only breathing masks and ear holes cut into their burkhas.
		Osama was the first film to be shot in post-Taliban Afghanistan, although the core of its story—a girl posing as a boy to circumvent the Taliban's strict regime—had been percolating in Barmak's mind since the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
	www.hollywoodvideo.com /movies/movie.aspx?MID=138860 (1845 words)

	OFFOFFOFF film review OSAMA Afghan movie by Siddiq Barmak with Marina Golbahari, Arif Herati, Zubaida Sahar, Gol Rahman ...
		Throughout the film, women must dissemble constantly, pretending that they are mourning when they are celebrating, and pretending that they are with a male relative when they are not.
		Osama benefits from its spare production (it is the first post-Taliban film, made on the only 35mm camera in the country).
		To the extent that his film is a well-imagined dramatization of a life under that poisoned social model, it deserves its accolades, and an audience.
	www.offoffoff.com /film/2004/osama.php (1081 words)

	Osama - Rotten Tomatoes
		A 12-year-old girl, her mother, and a local village boy narrowly survive the brutal end of a peaceful demonstration organized by women who are oppressed by the cruel Taliban regime.
		Osama is a bitter and tragic story of Afghan life under the Taliban regime, a terrible time when no one could make their own decisions.
		Osama is the first feature film to be made in Afghanistan in the post-Taliban era.
	www.rottentomatoes.com /m/osama/about.php (1640 words)

	Asia Pacific Arts: Politically Enduring Or Artistically Under Achieved?
		Osama takes place in the midst of a Taliban ruled Afghanistan where the Islamic Fundamentalist group has completely taken over a once liberal society with an oppressive grip; the social infrastructure is in disrepair and there is no money to pay public servants.
		Osama is actually a very common male and female name in the Middle East, equivalent to Pat, Terry, or Jamie in Western cultures.
		Filmed over the course of a year on a budget of $21,000, this was the first film in Afghanistan since the rise and fall of the Taliban regime.
	www.asiaarts.ucla.edu /article.asp?parentid=7956 (1529 words)

	THE HANDSTAND
		Titled "Osama", the film is not about the elusive terrorist mastermind allegedly behind the WTC and Pentagon attacks in September 2001.
		The film opens with a demonstration of widows on the streets of Kabul, demanding the rightto work to feed their starving families.
		In fact, what makes the film truly frightening is when you see how brutalized and cruel children are -- both when they terrorize Osama, as well as the obvious glee with which they close in on the white woman to stone her.
	www.thehandstand.org /archive/september2003/articles/film.htm (2138 words)

	Compare Prices and Read Reviews on Osama at Epinions.com
		Siddiq Barmak's film OSAMA is a heartwrenching, illuminating tale of the plight of one hopeless girl, lost in the moral abyss of Taliban ruled Afghanistan, that deserves to be seen
		OSAMA's story isn't a happy one and, filled with the second universal constant that is suffering, is fraught with an existential malaise indicative of a cultural temperament which has subjugated women for ages.
		While most of film's characters aren't nearly as developed as Golbahari's (And hers is a characterization that owes more to reaction and expressions rather than action and dialogue), the other main performance standout is Herati's as the heroic Espandi.
	www.epinions.com /content_130866056836 (1302 words)

	Afghan Film "Osama" Depicts Taliban Tyranny Against Women
		The film tells the story of an Afghan girl forced to disguise herself as a boy named Osama in order to find work and feed her family.
		The film's thirteen-year-old star, Marina Golbahari, once lived as an illiterate street beggar in Kabul, and "her eyes and expressive face connect the audience to the determination, struggle and hardship of Afghan women and children," he said.
		Under Secretary of State for Global Issues Paula Dobriansky described the film as "one of the most moving, gripping and sobering testaments to the horror of life under the Taliban," where women were prohibited from attending school, working, or making basic lifestyle choices such as the freedom of movement or marriage.
	www.parstimes.com /news/archive/2004/washfile/osama.html (928 words)

	CinemaSpeak.Com - REALITY: An interview with Osama writer/director Siddiq Barmak.
		Centering on the plight of a young girl (Marina Golhahari), who adopts the name Osama to complete her disguise as a boy, in order to earn money for her family, the film brings to light the startling oppression of women by the Taliban.
		But in a film that vigorously stresses naturalism as a prime function in delivering its pointed commentary, the actors' lack of formal training can certainly be regarded as an unexpected blessing.
		They were not familiar with film, and in some cases they were afraid that the Taliban should come again." He continues, "A majority of them asked me if it was going to be like Indian film (the main cinematic import in Afghanistan) with dance and pornographic scenes -- they were not going to do that.
	www.cinemaspeak.com /Interviews/osamaint.html (1061 words)

	U-WIRE.com/FILM REVIEW: 'Osama' sets new standard in filmmaking (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		In "Osama" a nameless war widow (none of the female characters in the film are named, as if to emphasize how horribly women were stripped of even identity) who can no longer work as a doctor sends her daughter out into the world disguised as a boy.
		The daughter, who as a boy is called Osama, must go from what it means to be female under the Taliban -- powerless, dominated and abused -- to suddenly being her family's sole financial support.
		When Osama is sent off to school, she stares in puzzlement at the boys playing around her.
	www.uwire.com /content/topae020204001.html (564 words)

	Spirituality & Practice: Film Review: Osama, directed by Siddiq Barmak
		It is the first feature length film made in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban and was shot with the only 35 mm camera in the country.
		Osama rigorously depicts the systematic abuse of women in every area of their lives.
		Osama delivers a cry from the heart of subjugated and humiliated women in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban.
	www.spiritualityandpractice.com /films/films.php?id=6959 (672 words)

	Sunday Morning - 09/05/2004: Film Review: Osama
		Osama is a film in which the making of it is almost as exciting as the film itself.
		When the film opens, women in Kabul are demonstrating for the right to work and they are wearing those very hated, but I must say very beautiful, billowing blue bhurkas, these billowing blue images fill the screen.
		It’s a wonderful film and one of the great scandals of this year’s Academy Awards was that it was not among the films nominated as Best Foreign Film, when some of the other nominations were mediocre.
	www.abc.net.au /rn/arts/sunmorn/stories/s1103628.htm (721 words)

	The Trouble with the Taliban; Siddiq Barmak's "Osama"
		"Osama," the first Afghani feature-length film made since the fall of the Taliban, is a film you want very much to like, and many do.
		It's an incredibly simple tale, more a series of horrifying tableaux than a fully-formed narrative, about a young girl who, driven to starvation by the Taliban who refuse to allow her widowed mother to work, is forced to pass herself off as a boy.
		Other, more self-consciously literary/visual moments supply an ambivalent weight to the film, as for example, when a crippled child brings up the rear of a small group of people moving through a hospital that has run out of medical supplies, and Barmak holds the camera on him for what seems an eternity.
	www.indiewire.com /movies/movies_030912osama.html (690 words)

	Rambles: Osama (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		Osama in this case is a young girl on the cusp of puberty.
		As Osama sleeps through a nightmare, soothed by her grandmother, her hair is shorn, her body dressed in her dead father's clothing.
		Osama is full of nightmarish, foreboding scenes of power run amok, but it's the sounds, too, that will catch your breath: the hush of scissors cutting off Osama's braids as she sleeps, the padding of a disabled child's feet as he stumbles down the hospital's hallway, abandoned in a rush to evacuate.
	www.rambles.net /osama_film03.html (421 words)

	Afghan Film Osama Tells of Life Under Taleban Cruelty
		Afghanistan's first film since the rise and fall of the Taleban portrays that regime's cruelty toward women - who were not allowed to go outside without a male escort and were forced to wear floor-length veiled dresses called burqas.
		"The film is about a girl who pretend(s) that she is a boy so she could go outside the home and work to support her family after her father's death," he explained.
		"Osama begins with an apt epigraph, attributed to Nelson Mandela: 'I can forgive, but I cannot forget.' And although Mandela was speaking of a new South Africa, I think it would be equally applicable to a new Afghanistan," she said.
	www.payvand.com /news/04/feb/1143.html (716 words)

	Osama the freedom fighter - Film - www.theage.com.au
		Support for the film has continued to grow since its Cannes premiere last year, when it was singled out for praise, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association writers have been its greatest champions, even if it wasn't nominated for an Academy Award.
		At the same time, he's a film nut who loves telling stories in images - he received a masters degree in film directing from Moscow University - so, with his passion on two fronts, he's a force to be reckoned with.
		In the film, the young girl adopts the feared name of Osama to deflect attention when she disguises herself as a boy.
	www.theage.com.au /articles/2004/04/29/1083103601751.html (807 words)

	London Film Festival - Films - Featured Film: Osama (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-19)
		Directed by Siddik Barmak, it is the first film to be made in post-Taliban Afghanistan and a potent reminder of the savage injustices - not least those meted out to women - of that unlamented regime.
		The two films make a convincing cinematic diptych, the sea of blue burqas in each acting as the hinge between a period of total despair, and one of comparative (if still compromised) hope.
		Osama is a story about all those who lost their identity.
	www.lff.org.uk /films_editorials.php?EditorialID=14 (458 words)

	Osama (film) Summary
		Osama is a 2003 film made in Afghanistan.
		It was the first film to be shot entirely in that country since 1996, when the Taliban régime banned the creation of all films.
		Discusses how the film depicts the life of an Afghan girl.
	www.bookrags.com /Osama_(film) (93 words)

	Asia Times Online - The trusted source for news on Central Asia
		Osama is the story of an Afghan family of nearly all females who are left to fend for themselves during the Taliban-era after the death of the father and an uncle.
		After the Taliban exposes Osama's true gender, her only way to avoid death by stoning is to become the fourth wife of an elderly mullah.
		The American film company United Artists has picked up the film for distribution and it has begun to be screened across Europe and the United States.
	www.atimes.com /atimes/Central_Asia/FA28Ag01.html (954 words)

	Review of films featured at the 2004 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, "Osama," ...
		South Africa is the setting for two films: "When the War is Over" follows two ex-activists years after the fall of Apartheid, and "State of Denial" explores the lives of those living with AIDS.
		Filming in the shops, homes, and alleys of Kabul, Barmak skillfully portrays the barren, desiccated landscape and the poverty and oppression the people face, giving the film a hallucinatory vividness.
		As a personal and political statement -- and a scathing indictment of the Taliban -- "Osama" is relentless as it leads patiently but inevitably to its dark, gripping conclusion.
	www.newenglandfilm.com /news/archives/04january/hrfest.htm (977 words)

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