New film shows September 11 widows in Afghanistan

NEW YORK, Apr 28 (Reuters) The director of a new documentary about two September 11 widows who launched a campaign to help Afghan war widows says it's not a ''September 11 movie'' and her aim is to counter US public amnesia about Afghanistan.

''Beyond Belief,'' which premiered at New York's Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday, is the story of two Boston women who were widowed, pregnant, when their husbands died on one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center.

Susan Retik and Patti Quigley cycled from New York to Boston to raise money to help Afghan war widows. Last year, they traveled to Kabul to visit projects they helped fund, such as one that provides women with incubators to raise chickens.

The film follows their story from struggling with their own grief to the realization that they are relatively lucky compared with the 5,00,000 Afghan women widowed in more than two decades of conflict and left with no way to support their children.

''I've heard time and time again the market's been inundated with 9/11 (films),'' director Beth Murphy said.

''It's not a 9/11 film although September 11 is clearly the starting point,'' Murphy said. ''This is really about two women who experience an enormous tragedy who then, because of that, opened up their eyes to the world.'' Among the people they meet in Kabul are an elderly woman whose seven sons died and another who lost three children.

''I've had a terrible life,'' the second woman says. ''My children died from starvation. They went into the ground hungry.'' After yesterday screening, Murphy said she hoped the film would counter what she called amnesia in the US public about the continuing war in Afghanistan.

The United States invaded Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks to oust the Taliban government harboring Osama bin Laden. The country has been fractured by rival warlords since the Soviet Union pulled out in 1989.

''After September 11, there was such a shutting down of ...

the American spirit of reaching out to others,'' Murphy said.

''The xenophobic feel and fervor that really took hold in America was really, I think, despicable and it continues to be.'' Retik and Quigley most people were supportive of their foundation to help Afghan women, Beyond the 11th, but a few questioned why they were not focused on helping Americans.

''I've gotten horrible e-mails (saying) 'Why don't we just nuke them all?' It's beyond belief to me that there could be such hatred.'' REUTERS DKS BST0540