Voice of the unknown woman: Afghan filmmaker Roya Sadat

For a generation, Roya Sadat has been a voice for Afghan women in one of the world's worst places to be one.

One of the first female filmmakers to make her name after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, she has won plaudits at home and abroad for works such as "A Letter to the President", and "Three Dots", and "Playing the Taar".

She has lived through the Soviet occupation -- fleeing with her family for their lives at times -- endured the brutality of civil war, and then the violent oppression of Taliban rule, where women existed only in the shadows and basic freedoms were lost.

Her great fear is a return to that kind of fundamentalism: The February 29, US-Taliban deal may be a potential first step for peace in a nation that for decades has only known war, but it offers no guarantees the few women's rights set out in the current constitution will be upheld.

"I feel concerned when I remember how we had simply been forgotten during the five-year Taliban rule until 9/11 happened," says the 37-year-old, adding: "If the international community approaches [Afghanistan] as an open and shut scenario and abandons us again, there will undoubtedly be grave consequences."
"I strongly believe in cinema and that this is the most important art that can influence a positive change in our society. But change cannot come overnight. The change has to come to the thoughts and minds of people."