Afghans Don't Flirt

More than thirteen years ago, 35-year-old Suzana Lipovac swapped her well-paid job in Germany for a life as a relief worker. Lipovac, a daughter of Bosnian-Croatian refugees, initially worked in the Balkans for twelve years. For the past eighteen months, she has been running the charity organisation Kinderberg in Afghanistan. She manages some first-aid stations in Kabul, but she prefers to operate in more dangerous areas, where other relief organisations are absent. The documentary follows Lipovac in her attempt to open a new first-aid post in the remote Dashtaq region. Initially, she is not very successful. Hardly anybody shows up at the agreed-upon meeting point on the barren plain. “We don't know which day to be there. For us, every day is Friday.” The question is to what extent this opposition is a result of her being a young, Western, non-Islamic woman. The film gradually makes clear how this “crisis manager in Kabul,” constantly has to achieve the right balance between the customs of the Afghans and the expectations of her financial backers, in order to continue her work. Alternately at work and in front of the camera, Lipovac elucidates her motives and experiences in the world of humanitarian aid.