The film is about performative strategies to undermine the rigid gender norms in Afghan society: at the level of film productions, in political work and in everyday life. The protagonists of PASSING THE RAINBOW include a teacher who is also an actress, a police officer who works part-time as an action film director, an activist from the RAWA organization, which advocates the radical separation of state and religion, a girl theater group in Kabul and Malek_a, who lives as a boy and thus earns a living for their family.