Arts & Entertainment

A scene from

The Beauty
Academy of •
Kabul

Jewish filmmaker's

documentary on

Afghani beauty school

screens at

Detroit Film Theatre.

oks

Naomi Pfefferman
Jewish Journal of
Greater Los Angeles

W

hen Liz Mermin
flew to Afghanistan
to shoot her docu-
mentary The Beauty Academy
of Kabul in 2003, she was con-
sumed by dread. Never mind
that she had previously trailed
abortion doctors dodging mur-
derous pro-lifers for her film.On
Hostile Ground.
Now she was heading for even
more hostile ground, despite the
State Department advisories, the
mines planted in the roads, the
bombs exploding in women's
schools.

ill

uld

Mermin was hoping to profile
an equally controversial school
— one for hairdressers who
had run secret salons under the
Taliban. She was well aware that
women who wore makeup in
public still risked having acid
thrown in their faces.
• As a Jew, she was also cogni-
zant of the extra risks of ventur-
ing into extremist Muslim terri-
tory. The 2001 murder of Jewish
journalist Daniel Pearl was never
far from her thoughts.
"I was afraid of being attacked
as an American and a represen-
tative of the West;' she said in
a telephone interview from her
Manhattan apartment. "But I
knew I was after a great story,

and I was incredibly curious
about what I might find."

Activist Buttons
Her curiosity began after she
-reach 2002 New York Times
article about the proposed
school, which was backed by
Vogue magazine and volunteer
American stylists. "I thought, 'Of
all the things Afghanistan needs,
how could a beauty school be
anywhere but near the bottom of
the list? ' •
Yet Mermin was also intrigued
that crude home salons had
flourished under the Taliban, and
that customers still wanted to

"

Looks on page 44

April 20 • 2006

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