Alexa Benkert did not have to think long about whether to accept the role. When the Afghan director Sayed Jalal Rohani asked whether she would take the lead in his new short film, she immediately knew she would embark on this journey. A journey that took her, entirely alone, to Afghanistan. What she experienced there in those two weeks still preoccupies the actress intensely weeks afterwards. "Of course I knew it is a country at war, but it really is something else when you are there. There is simply chaos. In Kabul you see weapons everywhere, tanks patrol the streets, military helicopters fly over the city, and amid all the noise prayers are said five times a day. Nothing fits together." Her eyes took in so much, Alexa Benkert recounts, that her mind could barely keep up. She was almost glad that for safety reasons she had to stay in her room for three days. That way she could come to rest and gather fresh strength. Strength she needed, among other things, for her role. The short film "The Lady with the Purple Shoes" is a courageous film. It is set in the Afghanistan of 40 years ago — a time, that is, when women there studied, wore skirts and led independent lives. In that era, a young woman divorces her husband. To feed herself and her child, she goes into prostitution. One night she meets a wealthy man whom she accompanies home. The camera leaves the scene as four men enter the room. In the end, the woman's body is disposed of. The shoot in Afghanistan was an artistic challenge for Alexa Benkert. "I was the only Western woman on the team. There were moments when other actors left the set because I was showing too much leg in my role. That would bring shame upon their family, they said.
Then the power kept failing and actors simply did not turn up. One night we couldn't shoot a scene at first because one of five suicide bombers had just been spotted in the street. When, after hours, we finally did shoot, it was only about getting the scene in the can as quickly as possible. There was no room to attend in depth to my artistic state of mind. I couldn't immerse myself in the role as deeply as I usually do, because the external circumstances hardly allowed it," she recounts. At the same time, Alexa Benkert met incredibly strong, hopeful people. Such as a young footballer of the national team who studies on the side. When an attack was carried out on the university in Kabul some time ago, he not only saw the attackers but also lost two of his friends in it. Even so, he quickly looked ahead again — life simply has to go on, he told Alexa Benkert. "Experiencing first-hand how people live was at times hard to bear. I do not regret making this journey, but parts of it were genuinely hard, emotionally and mentally." The film is to be shown in Afghanistan. Perhaps it will then find its way to Europe too, as other films by the director have managed to do before.