Directed by Bill Guttentag
US: Out now UK: Released 25 March
Time magazine named Roya Mahboob among the 100 most influential people in the world in 2013. She was the first Afghan woman to be CEO of a technology firm, having founded the Afghan Citadel Software Company in 2010. She is also co-founder of the country’s all-female robotics team for girls aged 12 to 18, called the Afghan Dreamers.
This is the focus of Rule Breakers, directed and co-written by Bill Guttentag. It tells the story of Roya (played here by Nikohl Boosheri), who was prevented from following her interest in computers at school because she was a girl.
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Faced with the disparity in secondary education between girls and boys in Afghanistan, Mahboob later set out to extend computer classes to girls across the country. In 2017, she formed the Afghan Dreamers to showcase the possibilities of tech for girls and women via global robotics competitions.
When the Taliban gained power in Afghanistan in 2021, it became the only country to ban education for girls aged 12 and over. In mid-2024, that 1.4 million Afghan girls had since been denied secondary education.
In addition, female teachers have been banned from teaching boys and many have lost their jobs. With the humanitarian organisation that 82 per cent of Afghan women had deepening feelings of anxiety, isolation and depression in 2024, the education ban is one of several factors that not only prevent women from becoming working professionals, but confine them to being housewives and mothers.
In Rule Breakers, Guttentag and co-writers Jason Brown and Elaha Mahboob, Roya’s sister, chronicle a journey of self-discovery by women who wish to win against the mounting odds against them. That group comprises Mahboob, who is committed to broadening horizons for Afghan girls and women, and several girls who each defy their sceptical and traditional guardians to find their voices, confidence and success.
As the film unfolds, the young team is increasingly exposed to the world and new possibilities – which wouldn’t have happened without Mahboob’s insistence.
In mid-2024, UNESCO reported that 1.4 million Afghan girls had been denied education
Although she is an integral part of Rule Breakers, her software company and work on expanding girls’ computer classes quickly play second fiddle in the film to the creation of the Afghan Dreamers. Several time jumps chart Mahboob’s experience with computers from childhood to adulthood, yet it is hard to gauge how tech captured her interest.
Even so, Boosheri plays Mahboob with quiet conviction, consistently rising above adversity to spread her message internationally. The opening scene sees her address a group of young women. She tells them: “Girls are not free in life, but they are on this,” pointing at a laptop. As for the judgement they fear from their parents, Mahboob adds: “This is no longer our fathers’, our grandfathers’ Afghanistan – this is our Afghanistan too, our time.”
The supporting cast, especially the young actors portraying the Afghan Dreamers, offer emotion and enthusiasm in their performances. We see their spirits lift when they discover something new, such as ideas for inventions or how to conquer their own insecurities.
Like Mahboob, they don’t cower in fear in trying times, whether this is when they are denied visas to , or during a suicide bombing in Herat that ultimately killed , father of the team’s captain, Fatemah Qaderyan. The use of these real-life events in the narrative reinforce Afghanistan’s sociopolitical issues on a broader level, showing how women’s rights in Afghanistan need to be addressed.
Making films about women in science and tech is becoming more common, from Hidden Figures, about the work of three of NASA’s African American women mathematicians in the 1960s, to the all-female remake of Ghostbusters, both of which celebrate, in different ways, women striving for success in challenging times. Rule Breakers is another terrific example, a drama that reiterates the necessity of secondary education and the rewards that come from it.
Katie Smith-Wong is a film critic based in London
