Plot

After the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the restriction of women in public life, a pre-teen girl is forced to masquerade as a boy in order to find work to support her mother and grandmother.

The Taliban are ruling Afghanistan, they being a repressive regime especially for women, who, among other things, are not allowed to work. This situation is especially difficult for one family consisting solely of three women representing three successive generations. All the males in their family have died in various Afghani wars. The mother had been working as a nurse in a hospital, but regardless of she not being allowed to work, the Taliban has cut off funding to the hospital. The mother and grandmother make what they feel is the only decision they can to survive: they will have the preteen daughter masquerade as a boy so that she can get a job to support the family. The daughter, feeling powerless, agrees despite being scared as if the Taliban discover her masquerade, she is certain they will kill her. Partly as a symbolic measure, the daughter plants a lock of her now cut hair in a pot so that her lost femininity can flourish. The only people outside the family who know of the ruse are the milk vendor who employs the daughter - he who was a friend of her deceased father - and a local boy named Espandi who recognizes her despite her outward change in appearance. Espandi renames her Osama. The masquerade becomes more difficult when the Taliban recruit all the local boys to school, which includes military training.—Huggo

Because of the wars a huge number of women in Afghanistan have lost their husbands, fathers and sons, and have no breadwinners anymore for their families. As the Talibans have imposed very strict regulations for women's clothing and limited their possibilities to move around outdoors, it is almost impossible for women to get paid jobs. On the brink of starvation one widow decides to change her daughter into a boy, by cutting her hair and changing her cloths. A friend of her deceased husband employs the disguised girl in his little snack bar. Some days later the Talibans start recruiting young boys by force to their Koran schools. Also the disguised girl is taken away. Soon the other pupils suspect that she is a girl. A street boy, who knows her true identity, tries to protect her, by assuring that she is a boy with the name Osama, but in vain. The Taliban teachers put her on a torturing test. When blood is dripping down her legs, they know for sure that she is a girl. They take her to a judge, who sentences her to marry old Molla Sahib. He locks her up in his big house in the countryside, together with the wives he already has.—Maths Jesperson {maths.jesperson1@comhem.se}

A 12-year-old Afghan girl and her mother lose their jobs when the Taliban closes the hospital where they work. The Taliban have also forbidden women to leave their houses without a male "legal companion." With her husband and brother dead, killed in battle, there is no one left to support the family. Without being able to leave the house, the mother is left with nowhere to turn. Feeling that she has no other choice, she disguises her daughter as a boy. Now called 'Osama,' the girl embarks on a terrifying and confusing journey as she tries to keep the Taliban from finding out her true identity. Inspired by a true story, Osama is the first entirely Afghan film shot since the fall of the Taliban.—Anonymous

In Afghanistan, during the Taliban regime, women are forbidden to work and to walk on the streets without the company of a male. The teenager girl Osama cuts her hair and dresses like a boy to get a job and support her widow mother and grandmother. There is no men in her family, since her father and her brother were killed in previous Afghan wars, and the family has no means of survival. When Osama, disguised as a boy, is called by the Taliban to join the school and military training, the boy Espandi tries to help her.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The Taliban are ruling Afghanistan. Their regime is especially repressive for women, who, among other things, are not allowed to work. The women take out demonstrations in the village for the right to work. The women are desperate and hungry. Some are also widows, with no male members in the family. The Taliban fire openly on women processions with guns and water cannons, leading to many deaths. Many women are captured and put into cages like animals.

Under Taliban rule women are not allowed to leave their homes without a male escort, have no right to education and no right to work other than health and education. Women are mandated to wear the Burqa at all times in public. The Taliban extended the ban on university education for women and barred them from working in NGOs. They shut down beauty salons and banned women from accessing gyms and parks.

This situation becomes difficult for one family consisting solely of three women, representing three successive generations: a young girl, her mother (Zubaida Sahar), and her grandmother. With the mother's husband and uncle dead, having been killed in battle during the Soviet invasion and their civil wars, there are no men left to support the family. A street urchin named Espandi harasses the family, and recognizes all 3 females. Espandi makes a living by begging for alms from foreigners who come to Afghanistan to film the destitution and the treatment of women.

The mother had been working as a nurse in a hospital, but the Taliban cut off funding to the hospital, leaving it completely dysfunctional with no medicines and very little equipment. The Director of the hospital begs his inability to pay any wages to any of the staff, including doctors and nurses. The hospital is out of oxygen and the patients are being made to share the remaining IV supplies. The young girl and her mother are owed 4 months of back wages. Since the hospital is out of oxygen, the patients attendants are asked to fan the patients to ensure that they get at least some oxygen supply in their body and lungs.

One foreign woman working as a nurse in the hospital is arrested by the Taliban. The mother survives the Taliban raid on the hospital by claiming that the attendant of her patient is her husband. The man decides to take the patient (his father) back to his home, as the hospital has no doctors now. The mother does some nursing outside the hospital and receives payment from the caretaker of a patient. The caretaker is a decent man and helps the mother and her daughter go back and forth from their house, as he knows that if they travel alone, the Taliban would give them a lot of trouble. The Taliban object to the caretaker carrying the mother and the daughter on his bicycle, claiming that it would arouse men inappropriately. After the patient dies the mother cannot find any more work.

The grandmother believes that men and women have been created equal and they work equally hard. She says that a woman with short hair, a shirt and pants looks just like a man. The mother and grandmother then make what they feel is the only decision they can to survive: they will have their preteen daughter (Marina Golbahari) disguise herself as a boy (using her father's old clothes which were altered by her mother to fit her size) so that she can get a job to support the family.

To persuade the girl to accept the plan, the grandmother tells her an Afghan fable about a boy who became a girl when he went under a rainbow. The girl reluctantly agrees, despite being afraid that the Taliban will kill her if they discover her masquerade. The grandmother says that if she is careful, nobody will find out. They cut her hair, and the girl plants a lock of it in a flowerpot.

The only people outside the family who know of the ruse are the milk vendor who employs the daughter - he who was a friend of her deceased father - and a local boy named Espandi (Arif Herati), who recognizes her despite her outward change in appearance. Espandi is the one who renames her Osama.

As a boy Osama has to participate in the prayers which are held 5 times a day. He has to learn to perform religious ablutions. Osama lives in daily terror that she will be discovered as a girl by the Taliban and lynched to death. The masquerade becomes more difficult when the Taliban draft all the local boys into their madrasa, a religious and military training school for boys.

At the training school, they are taught how to conduct ablutions, that should be performed when they experience nocturnal emission or come in contact with their wife when they grow older. Osama attempts to avoid joining the ablution session, and the master grows suspicious of Osama's gender. Osama realizes it can only be so long before she is found out. Several of the boys begin to pick on her (Osama has feminine manners and the boys want to search him to figure out the truth), and although Espandi is at first able to protect her, her secret is eventually discovered when she menstruates.

Osama is arrested and put on trial, along with a Western journalist, and the foreign woman who was arrested in the hospital. The journalist and the nurse are both condemned and put to death, but, as Osama is destitute and helpless, her life is spared; she is instead given in marriage to a much older man. Osama's new husband already has three wives, all of whom hate him and say he has destroyed their lives. They take pity on Osama but are powerless to help her. The husband shows Osama the padlocks he uses on his wives' rooms, reserving the largest for Osama.

The new husband conducting an ablution in an outdoor bath, which the boys were earlier taught to conduct after coming in contact with their wives.