Closing Event: 2:30PM
WE WILL HARBOR YOU: The Battered Women's Movement
A 30 min segment of the work-in-progress
Producers, Kathleen Laughlin and Terri Hawthorne
A small group of Minnesota women inadvertently crack open the silence of a 6000 year old issue: women beaten, with no recourse. WE WILL HARBOR YOU tells a story that arose with the women's movement and was fueled by a host of other social movements of the 60's and 70's. The civil rights, feminist, Native American, labor, and anti-Vietnam war struggles provided valuable background for the grass roots actions of the early advocates. Giving voice to a secretive subject, they identify with battered women and struggle to temporarily house them. Shelters erupt almost simultaneously across the western world; the battered women and those who advocate for them become a powerful movement. This documentary engages the viewer with the challenges, philosophies and lessons of battered women's advocates’ work; collectively the stories provide a remarkable history of the changes they wrought. Theirs was always a two-pronged effort – demand safety for women who are battered, and teach institutions and the society at large how to end such violence. The movement women found the resources, wrote new laws, invented new processes, confronted their own racism, and continue to wrestle with powerful institutional resistance. The documentary shows us how we in Minnesota are model, microcosm, and metaphor; these many faces of the 35-year struggle inform our awareness and inspire action today.
Dev TV Short Film Series
Co-presented by The Friends of the Saint Paul Public Library
Room 323 (3rd Floor of Coffman)
WOMEN ON THE FRONTLINE
http://www.dev.tv/wofl_web.pdf
Mauritania: A Question of Rape (10:45)
In the Islamic state of Mauritania, punishments are severe for any kind of sexual relationship out of marriage: an abuse known as "Zina". Rape is undefined in the country’s law, and for a woman to allege she has been raped is to run the risk of imprisonment. About 60% of women who allege rape are accused of Zina. It is therefore unsurprising that most choose to remain silent. Featured in our final film is Fatima M’Baye, the first female lawyer in Mauritania, who is part of the move to blunt the harsher aspects of Sharia by mixing it with French law. She is also helping women overturn their convictions.
Turkey: Killing in the Name of Honour (12:30)
Worldwide, according to the United Nations Poulation Fund, as many as 5,000 women a year are murdered in the name of honour. In Turkey there are no recorded figures. But behind closed doors, officials admit that the problem is a grave one. Emanating from centuries old traditions, it is proving almost impossible to eradicate. Recent attempts to crack down on perpetrators, such as making life imprisonment mandatory, have not solved the problem, but instead stimulated a whole new wave of criminal activity: forced suicides. In this film we hear from men who have to choose between murder and dishonour and investigate whether it truly is possible to change a repressive psyche of this custom of the Middle East?
Colombia: Justice in the Region of Death (11:20)
The Mid-Magdalena region of Colombia is known as the ‘region of death’. It’s one of the most macho places in Latin America where women are the victims in the drugs-fuelled conflict between right wing death squads, the army and left wing guerrillas. “Their bodies have been turned into a battleground,” according to Amnesty International. In this guerilla war, where at its peak at the end of the 1990s there was a murder rate of 115 per 100,000 citizens, violence against women is a casual part of everyday life. But change is coming. One of the ‘change-makers’ is Judge Esperanza Gonzalez, a woman in her late 40s. Trained by the “Programa de Desarrollo y Paz del Magdalena Medio” on sexual and reproductive rights, Women on the Frontline tracks her in the courtroom and outside as she seeks to bring justice for females in the ‘region of death’.
Morocco: Never Again (1:45)
Morocco is coming to terms with the human rights abuses of its recent past. Televised testimonies to a truth and reconciliation commission set up by the government have transfixed the nation, unveiling the atrocities committed under King Hassan's 38 year rule. Through the personal testimonies of those who suffered both wrongful imprisonment and torture in the 1970s and 80s, we discover the prominent role women had in resisting repressive rule during the "Iron Fist" era. Women on the Frontline, tells the astonishing stories of two of these women - Fatna El Bouih and Khadija Rouissi – who put their lives on the line to fight for truth, justice and independence, and who survived to pass on their message of hope and endurance to a new generation.
Democratic Republic of Congo: Find a Word for It (11:55)
For the last ten years the Eastern Provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo have been at war. The women bear the brunt of it. The precise number of victims suffering from rape and related diseases, of which traumatic fistula is one, is impossible to know. A UN independent expert says that between 2005 and 2007, 14,200 cases were reported in South Kivu province alone. Shunned by their community, the women are often reluctant to come forward for treatment. Instead they are forced to bear the physical and psychological scars of their ordeal alone. We travel to Bukavu to interview Dr Denis Mukwege, one of the few doctors in the country willing to treat fistula, to discover the truth behind one of the world's greatest unreported evils.
Oxfam Short Film Series
Room 323 at 1:05
SISTERS ON THE PLANET
http://www.oxfamamerica.org/whatwedo/campaigns/climate_change/sisters-on-the-planet
Sahena's Story
Sahena Begum is spearheading community efforts to cope with changing weather in Kunderpara village, Bangladesh.
Sharon's Story
Sharon Hanshaw helps women speak out and prepare for future storms in post-Hurricane Katrina Biloxi, Mississippi
Muriel's Story
Muriel Saragoussi uses her voice to ensure that women’s needs are taken into account in all environmental policies in Brazil.
Martina's Story
Martina Longom campaigned for and helped to build a borehole to make collecting water easier in Caicaoan village, Uganda.