In Afghanistan, A Girl's Path to Change Runs Through a Skate School

One thing is readily apparent at the outset of Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl): Afghanistan is among the worst places to be born a girl.

As the short film opens in the streets of Kabul, filmmaker Carol Dysinger’s lens catches the glares of several Afghan men, their eyes each uniquely oppressive. It is a haunting montage of the male gaze and an agonizing first-person depiction of life for women in Afghanistan. Nearly two decades after the fall of the Taliban, women and girls are still largely forced into early marriages and banned from learning to read and write. But a new generation of Afghan girls is working to escape the gaze and rewrite their futures through schooling and skateboarding.

Dysinger is an NYU Tisch alum and associate professor at the Kanar Institute of Film and Television. Her short film, which won the 2020 Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject, follows the girls of Skateistan, a nonprofit skate school in Kabul that has morphed into a full-blown educational initiative. Through the daring and selfless work of a group of women teachers, Skateistan recruits young girls from impoverished neighborhoods and provides them a curriculum to aid their transition into public school. Dysinger, along with a film team comprising mostly Afghan women, build a window into the lives of young girls whose indomitable spirits are paving a path to change in their homeland.

Learning to Skateboard in a Warzone (If You’re a Girl) is currently available on A&E and streaming on Hulu. The following conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What I really appreciate about this film is its contrast, particularly between the harrowing and the playful. We transition between these worlds throughout the film. How did you determine the right balance in terms of tone?

CD: I’ve been filming in Afghanistan since 2005, so I’m very familiar with its nature. It’s a nation of poets—some of the greatest poets of the world have come from there. There’s this tremendous yearning, whether it’s for God or the beloved. It’s always given it this sense of tragedy, but still love.

We in America have the tendency to measure the progress in Afghanistan by our own measurements, and not by theirs. You have to start from where you are, and they have come a long way from where they were, in my humble opinion. These girls in [Skateistan], they’re poor girls. These are not rich girls. These are poor girls who Skateistan has found, and so for them getting an education is a miracle and skateboarding is just the cream on top. 

What I love about Afghanistan is the girls who get so little but do so much with whatever they get. I always wanted to make a movie about them. I made a film called Camp Victory, Afghanistan, which was about the training of the army, so I’ve always made movies in the masculine realm of war. But I spent a lot of time with women there, so when [the producers] came to me with this idea I thought, “This is the perfect way for me to try to get you to know what it’s like to be a woman in the women’s room…” 

In the opening scenes, one of the girls is asked to talk about courage. Rather than define it, she explains an act of courage: to come to school and study. And to me that feeling is suffused throughout the film. Could you share how you found yourself motivated and inspired by the girls of Skateistan?

One of the things that I learned in Afghanistan, in all the shooting I’ve done, is how conceptual we are as Americans. You ask someone what courage is, and you won’t get a description as something you can see or feel or smell. Afghanistan, even though it’s a very poetical place, it’s about what is real, what’s in front of me. They’re not going to learn by theory; they only learn by doing. And I just think that’s great. Maybe that’s because I teach at an art school where I’m like, “Ok, you can talk about this stuff all you want, but eventually you’ve gotta’... begin and let the work tell you what to do next.”

That application of reality is what I always find inspiring. It just brings you back to what’s in front of you. We have a habit in much of the West of making things very Manichean, either good or bad...

As to the girls—it’s just finding joy in where you are and what you do. Learning how to not be afraid to make mistakes is something we do all our lives. 

How did you approach this project in terms of building trust with the organization and the subjects, and ultimately securing such great access? 

Skateistan is a very protective organization, and rightfully so. They don’t want their girls to be made public figures. They want to help everybody do well in the life that they have. The place is completely run by Afghans—not many people are allowed in. The only reason we got to do this was because Orlando von Einsiedel, an executive producer, had made a short film and was friends with Oliver Percovich, the founder of Skateistan. So, getting permission from them and [having them] understand that I know how to deal with the safety of women on the internet and in this space—they don't just let anybody go in there. 

Lastly, I want to talk about your role as an educator. I think it’s paramount that educators continue to stay active in their craft, and you are a real reflection of that. Why is it important to you to continue to work in academia?

I went to NYU and won a Student Academy Award in 1977 and I spent many decades trying to break through and I couldn’t. That ceiling is not made of glass because if it was I would have broken it. I got to a point when I started teaching, and I made a vow to myself that I would be what I did not have. My teachers at NYU, very few had much experience and there were no women in the business at all. 

I took this as a mission. I couldn’t break through it and I wasn’t going to spend my whole life trying, and I discovered that I love teaching, especially at NYU because… you’re dealing with young people from all over the world who are trying to do things they haven’t seen. I have all this experience to help them manifest their vision, and it’s just a really nice way to spend time!