Synopsis

project fiftyone is an inspiring feature documentary told through the eyes of Bariz Shah and Saba Afrasyabi using personal interviews and intimate footage filmed over 3 months in Afghanistan.

Bariz Shah (28) and Saba Afrasyabi (27) are a young Afghan-Kiwi couple busy with humanitarian projects while raising a toddler and a newborn.

In the aftermath of the Christchurch Mosque Attacks, angry and grief-stricken, Bariz and Saba decide to embrace the negative energy and use it as fuel for positive change. They conceive a project and raising NZ$20,000 they travel to their birth country of Afghanistan to establish 51 micro-businesses to honour those slain.

It is a journey of healing. Despite no filming experience they buy a camera and record their work, gaining raw and intimate access to the lives of their recipients. For the characters in Afghanistan as little as US$250 is enough to change their lives. Their stories of hardship loss and hope interweave with Bariz’ and Saba’s own stories.

Through honest interviews they each reveal their family history, inner thoughts and difficult past. Bariz's troubled past, including crime and prison meant he’s had to work hard on his own mindset. He credits those experiences with enabling him to make the powerful choice to meet hate with love and show that good can result from evil. Saba remembers her own refugee experience of being an ‘invisible’. Picking up a stills camera in her teens helped her to feel seen.

Post-Taliban Bariz returns to Kabul to look for the characters we’ve come to know: some are flourishing, some have left, looking for better opportunities. Back in New Zealand he and Saba open their photographic exhibition “Project 51”, a record of their journey to Kabul to honour the 51 martyrs.

As the film ends Bariz and Saba look forward to future humanitarian work, both recognising the importance of sharing stories to connect societies, and the need to first face one's own story. They go forward as determined as ever to use their positive energy for good.