A female Afghan MP, Zefnoon Safi, looks out the window of her comfortable hotel room in Calgary, Alberta. She watches a flock of birds fly away, an image viewers might associate with a freedom humans don’t have. She is one of a few female Afghan politicians and journalists who had to leave Afghanistan after its government fell. The country, now under the hands of the Taliban, reinstated laws banning women from many forms of employment.

As documentaries do, this one uses contemporary and archive footage in covering maybe two decades of Afghan history. Two decades seem like a blink of an eye for these women who are running a de-facto exile government. The Afghanistan of yesterday feels ironically brighter when these women were entering many public spaces, serving their several constituents. The narration in An Unfinished Journey is also key, as these Afghan women express how they loved their work.

People worldwide may be experiencing crisis fatigue at the moment but An Unfinished Journey reminds us not to forget Afghanistan. To remember that the Taliban is a government terrorising girls and bombing the schools they promised would stay open. It’s hard to give them the benefit of the doubt since these attacks happen on their watch. This documentary’s use of news footage is harrowing as it shows its viewers the empty chairs where girls normally sit.

An Unfinished Journey clocks in at 75 minutes which doesn’t feel like it covers enough of its material. The rest of the documentary also captures the four women Facetiming their loved ones back in Afghanistan, which doesn’t feel like it’s doing a lot. As I write this though, it feels easy to be cynical towards what these women can do. But to beat a government that is instating gender apartheid, every little bit helps.