The Wake

Marriage, culture, violence and poverty are some of the themes of this year’s Women’s Human Right Film Series, which will be shown at libraries across the Twin Cities this fall. Sponsored by the Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights and Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library, the series consists of four documentary films, each focusing on an issue currently affecting women around the world. Viewers are invited to participate in discussion groups immediately following each film.

Mary Hunt, a Women’s Human Rights Program Associate for Minnesota Advocates, helps put together the film series each year and tries to find films that have a global and local connection.

“Bride Kidnapping in Kyrgyzstan” is heart-wrenching and candid as it unveils the shocking practice of kidnapping women off the street and forcing them into marriage, a cultural tradition still going on in Kyrgyzstan today, with one in three rural women being forced to tie the knot. Using a surprisingly balanced approach, director Petr Lom followed the lives of four ordinary Kyrgyz women who were dragged into the homes of strangers and informed of their new life. The results Lom captures are mixed, including acceptance, rebellion, and death. Rosalyn Park, a Staff Attorney for Minnesota Advocate’s Women’s Program, will lead a discussion about the conflict between women’s human rights and cultural traditions after the film,.

“Love, Honour and Disobey” deals with domestic violence occurring against woman of color in Great Britain. Much of the documentary is told from the perspective of survivors who found support in Southall Black Sisters, a community of women working to stop domestic abuse. Director Saeeda Khanum focuses primarily on Indian woman who, as illegal immigrants in the U.K., are trapped in arranged marriages with violent men. Their calls for help largely go unnoticed because of their alien status, and their families refuse to take them in because tradition dictates that a woman must stay with her husband under all circumstances. The film also touches on the honor killings that occur all too frequently in the U.K—particularly one incident in which a young woman was stabbed to death by her father for acting too “western.” Rebecca Palmer, Staff Attorney with the Battered Immigrant Women Project at Minnesota Advocates and Raj Chaudhary, Executive Director of SEWA-AIFW, a local non-profit organization serving the Asian-Indian population in Minnesota, will facilitate a discussion immediately following the show.

It will be screened on Oct. 18th, 7:00 p.m., at Rondo Community Outreach Library.

Obstetric Fistula is a reproductive disorder that obstructs or prolongs labor and often results in stillbirth. It also affects over two million woman across the globe. “Love, Labor, Loss” explores the disorder’s frequency in developing countries and its often devastating effect on women, who in many cases must deal with not only the death of their baby, but also rejection from their community, which shames them for an affliction over which they have no control. Worse yet, the condition is fully treatable—if you have the health care to deal with it. An open discussion led by Brikti Hiwet, Reproductive Health Consultant and Educator at Powderhorn Phillips Cultural Wellness Center and Marcela Hahn, Vice President of Development at Americans for UNFPA, an organization that has started a campaign to end Fistula, will take place after the viewing.

This film will be shown on November 16th, 7:00 p.m., at Arlington Hills Branch Library

Nearly 400 women vanished in Juarez, Mexcio during the 1990s and early 2000s. Mysteriously, only a few bodies were ever recovered. “Seniorita Extraviada, Missing Young Women” is an investigative documentary by Lourdes Portillo that probes deeps into the tragic phenomenon, which continues to plague the city today. Interviews with investigators, friends, and family members of the missing women paint a muddled picture as to what exactly happened in the bustling factory town over the past fifteen years. False arrests, finger-pointing, and a suspicious lack of evidence have left residents confused—and terrified for the lives of their daughters. Haunting photographs and a detailed account of rape and abuse from one survivor gives the movie an overall tone of despair. After the screening, viewers are invited to participate in a discussion led by Ann Theisen, a Minnesota Advocates Education Program Associate who lived near Juarez and conducted interviews about the gruesome epidemic.

Check this documentary out on December 14th, 7:00 p.m, at Riverview Branch Library.