Basma Khalid

There is nothing to pause at a documentary about girls' skating, but what if it was about girls in Afghanistan with Oscar winning the best short documentary 2020?

The Oscar-winning movie "Learning to Ski (If You're a Girl)" is a rare victory for a film in which Afghans take part after years of nominations, including "The Family", co-produced by American star Angelina Jolie.

The documentary revolves around students of the Skasatan Charity School, which provides free education for children so that they can enroll in public schools later on, and it also provides a space for skateboarding with a view to teaching children as valuable as courage and freedom.

The film begins in a busy street in the Afghan capital, Kabul, a city full of car bombs, kidnappings and violence against women, and here we see men staring at young girls.

The girls tell in the film about their life before entering school, one of whom worked as a chewing gum and another as a tea seller, until they were included in the school and their lives changed completely.

Some mothers who talk about their interest in educating girls are also involved, then we see the normal day for girls in school during a lesson on courage, and then we continue playing on the skiing field, and one girl says, "I don't want to grow up until I can ski forever."

Girls have not heard about the Oscars before, but the spread of the film and people talking about their lives increases them enthusiastically, and despite their young ages ranging between 5 and 14 years, they are fully aware of the reality of the life they live, and that everything will change completely once they reach the age of maturity.

"I've always wanted to make a movie about girls in Afghanistan, and the skateboarding was really an important addition to the movie," said film director Carol Dessinger. "It was a pleasure to be able to get the best part of Afghanistan and pass it on to people. I love these children very much, and it was nice I can convey their voice and their lives to a world where they are seldom seen as real people. "

Skasatan School
The charity started its work since 2008 at the initiative of Australian skater Oliver Berkovich who worked in Kabul, where he began teaching street children skiing, and the project developed into a school.

Skasatan today includes four ski schools, two in Afghanistan, one in South Africa and one in Cambodia, and in 2013 the school won the UNICEF Award for Education through Sport.

It is reported that the director of the movie Carol Dessinger spent many years in Afghanistan to get to know the lives of people who have suffered from decades of war, and directed two films, one of which is "Learning to ski in a war zone (if you are a girl)".