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29 Jan – 8 Feb 2026

Shahrbanoo Sadat

Shahrbanoo SADAT is an Afghan filmmaker based in Hamburg, Germany, since the fall of Kabul in 2021. She has been selected three times for the Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival – with her short film Vice Versa One in 2011, her debut feature Wolf and Sheep in 2016 (Camera d’Or nominee and CECAE Award winner), and her second feature The Orphanage in 2019. At just 19 years old, Sadat became the youngest filmmaker ever selected for the prestigious Cannes Cinéfondation Residency, where she developed Wolf and Sheep in 2010. Wolf and Sheep and The Orphanage are both part of a planned five-part film series inspired by Anwar Hashimi’s unpublished 800-page autobiographical manuscript. Her latest film, No Good Men  the third instalment in the series and a romantic comedy – is currently in post-production. Sadat served on the jury for the Best First Feature Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. She has also been a juror at several other esteemed festivals, including the Locarno Film Festival, Torino Film Lab, Festival des 3 Continents in Nantes, Reykjavík International Film Festival, FIFDH, and many others.

Filmography

A Smile for Life (2009, short doc), Vice Versa One (2011, short), Not at Home (2013, co-dir), Wolf and Sheep (2016), The Orphanage (2019), Super Afghan Gym (2026, short)

More info: Wikipedia, Shahrbanoo Sadat

Shahrbanoo Sadat at IFFR

  • Super Afghan Gym

    Shahrbanoo Sadat | 14' | Germany | World premiere

    In a gym in downtown Kabul, a group of housewives gather during the only hour of the day reserved for women.
  • The Orphanage

    Shahrbanoo Sadat | 90' | Denmark | None

    Bollywood-film nostalgia colours the experiences of fifteen-year-old Qodrat, who ends up in an orphanage during Afghanistan’s 1980s Soviet-oriented period.
  • Kabul Jan

    Shahrbanoo Sadat | 100' | Afghanistan |

    In the romantic dramedy Kabul Jan, a young camera-operator falls head over heels in love with a married TV reporter, who is twice her a
  • Not at Home

    Shahrbanoo Sadat, Katja Adomeit | 65' | Afghanistan | International premiere

    In Kabul, tensions within a family keep on increasing as tradition and reality clash. In Germany, an Afghan girl waits in a desolate refugee centre.…
  • The Orphanage

    Shahrbanoo Sadat | 90' | Afghanistan | None

    Bollywood-film nostalgia colours the experiences of fifteen-year-old Qodrat, who ends up in an orphanage during Afghanistan’s 1980s Soviet-oriented pe
  • Wolf and Sheep

    Shahrbanoo Sadat | 86' | Afghanistan | None

    Old traditions, customs and stories live on in a small shepherd community in the mountains of Afghanistan. The experiences of the village children &nd