90 min – 2022
Director : Manon LOIZEAU (France) and Elaha IQBALI (Afghanistan)
Production : Zadig Productions, Babel Doc and Wildbird Films (France)
La vie devant elle (The life before her) is the diary of the exile of a 14-year-old Afghan girl who decided to take a small camera to tell her story. As a child and through the act of filming, Elaha captures as closely and accurately as possible the lives of children growing up on the road, their strength in the absolute pursuit of their dream. This film tells the extraordinary power of resilience of the children during exile. A realistic and hopeful filmic tale of a young Afghan girl who looks far ahead.
After studying Russian and the IEP in Paris, in 1994 Manon LOIZEAU left for Moscow, where she remained for ten years. She works there for Le Monde, the BBC and the Nouvel Observateur and the CAPA agency. In 2006, she received the Albert-Londres Prize for her film directed with Alexis Marant La Malédiction de naître fille (Arte). Committed to making forgotten voices heard, Manon has directed numerous documentaries in Chechnya, Grozny, chronicle of a disappearance (France 2), Naître à Grozny et Tchétchénie, une guerre sans traces (Arte). She also directs documentaries in Iran Chronicle of a Forbidden Iran, in Syria, and in Yemen. In 2017 she directed the film Syria, le Cri Etouffé for France 2, which won the Mediterranean Issues Award at PriMed 2017.