As the Taliban, the extremist Islamist organisation, seized control of Afghanistan, one of the country's most popular film personalities Sahraa Karimi said the current situation is 'horrible' and the need of the hour is to document what is happening in the region for the world to witness these testing times.
The Taliban swept across Afghanistan this month, taking over almost all key Afghan towns and cities following the withdrawal of the US forces from the country after two decades.
Kabul also fell to the Taliban recently after the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani left the country for an unknown destination. Ghani is now in the UAE along with his family.
Karimi, whose open letter requesting the film community of the world to be the voice of the people of Afghanistan during the crisis went viral ahead of the Taliban takeover, recalled the events of August 15 when she was at a bank trying to withdraw money.
"On August 15, I was at a bank trying to get money but unfortunately we were waiting and did not get the money. We heard gunshots from outside and the manager of the bank asked me to leave because the Taliban just surrounded Kabul and they were very near," recalled the 38-year-old filmmaker.
She added, "The manager asked me to go home. Because everybody knows me in Kabul, he showed me the back door of the bank so that I could go and get a taxi."
The independent filmmaker, who is currently in Kyiv, Ukraine, after fleeing from Kabul, had shared a live video on 'Instagram' the day the Taliban took over the Afghanistan capital.
Talking about the video, the director, known for films like 'Hava, Maryam, Ayesha' and 'Afghan Women Behind the Wheel', said she decided to go live while she was running for her life as she believes 'the world should know about us'.
"In the middle of it, I thought it is not fair that Taliban are coming to take over the city, so I started to go live on 'Instagram'. I'm a filmmaker and even I'm in that situation. I think it is very important to record and let people know because what has happened in Afghanistan in these last several months was horrible," she said.
She stated, "The world was silent and did not believe that the Taliban would come to the town and take over the capital of the country."