A young New Zealand Muslim couple journey to Afghanistan to change 51 lives following an event that changed their own. IN CINEMAS NOW.

https://www.projectfiftyonefilm.com/

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.

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.

DIRECTORS STATEMENT

“I was attracted to direct the film project fifyone because it is a positive story about a humanitarian response to hate. A young couple affected by a traumatic event in their community took the negative energy and transformed it into a positive outcome-this is the heart, voice and purpose of the film. They consciously enacted a response to the hate of 15 March 2019 in a beautiful way.
The particular focus that Bariz and Saba applied to their project is the second reason for my wholehearted support. They went to their home-country of Afghanistan, a country that has endured 45 years of war, and found 51 entrepreneurs to support with a micro-business. Everyone the world over has this same struggle – the business of living is our common humanity. Our own struggles to make a living, support our families and help our children live out their dreams.
These are the same desires shared by the fathers and mothers we meet in Afghanistan. Everybody on this planet deserves the chance to thrive and flourish, in the here and now, without fear, violence or repression. The resilience of the people Bariz and Saba met and supported into a business is inspiring. Finally, it is a powerful statement of the potential of filmmaking to share stories as a way of bringing worlds together. Bariz and Saba’s  commitment to the sharing of stories across countries, cultures and faiths signals an insight into what is required for peace. As a filmmaking team, we worked hard to facilitate and ‘midwife’ the expression of Bariz and Saba’s lens – their sovereign voice and authentic experience – while being prepared to acknowledge all of our different biases and oftentimes quite different values and beliefs. So, I am proud of this film and our talented collective team of Christian, Jewish, Agnostic & Muslim New Zealanders who worked together to bring project fiftyone to the screen.”

LEAD DIRECTOR Gaylene Barnes
CO-DIRECTOR Bariz Shah, Saba Afrasyabi
PRODUCER Virginia Wright
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER Jill Macnab, Phil Bremner
CO-PRODUCER Saba Afrasyabi, Bariz Shah

“That little change, that little moment when you decide you will not carry on with that hate, you say – No, I will not continue with this. I will stop this. Then we came up with a way to respond to this hate, you know, in a beautiful way, in a humanitarian way. And then – project fiftyone.” Saba Afrasyabi