Set in a Europe on the brink of war, The Journey to Kafiristan is the story of two women who leave their home in Switzerland to journey together to Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1939. Annemarie Schwarzenbach is a Swiss socialite and writer who leaves Geneva with Ella Maillart, an ethnologist. Both women are eager to flee their past and strive towards different goals: Ella is in search of a tribe of nomads who populate the caves of the Kafiristan Valley, while Annemarie, a drug addict is looking for meaning in her life. As they traverse Europe and Afghanistan, the two women are drawn together into a passionate affair, one increasingly fraught with tensions that mirror those of a continent preparing for war. The Journey to Kafiristan was screened at the 2002 Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.