The Fight For Women’s Rights

Writing With Fire

Rintu Thomas & Sushmit Ghosh / India  / 2021  / 93mins

Writing With Fire follows chief reporter Meera and her courageous team of journalists as they uncover stories and upend traditions at Khabar Lahariya; India’s only newspaper run by Dalit women.

Working in a cluttered news landscape dominated by men, and living in Uttar Pradesh – a state known for its notorious levels of violence against women and oppression of minorities – Meera’s team face down daily challenges to tackle India’s biggest issues. Armed with their smartphones, the KL reporters break traditions on the frontlines and within the confines of their own.

Soldier’s Woman

Patricia Wiesse Risso / Peru  / 2020  / 82mins

With stunning cinematography and respectful intimacy, Soldier’s Woman follows Magda Surichaqui Cóndor, a Peruvian woman seeking justice for the life-changing events of her youth.

In 1984, soldiers of the Peruvian army stationed near Magda’s village raped and abused many of the local women, leaving them blamed and rejected by their own communities. Three decades on, Magda is ready to join forces with a group of other women to bring charges against their abusers, and to restore the dignity they have been denied for 30 years. As three friends who have been through the same experience arrive to lend their support, director Patricia Wiesse Risso captures the healing bonds of solidarity with great empathy, centring the voices of women who have been silenced for so long.

Sabaya

Hogir Hirori / Sweden  / 2021  / 91mins

In northeast Syria, the infamous al-Hol refugee camp is home to some 70,000 Daesh (ISIS) supporters and, hidden amongst them, thousands of Yazidi women and girls who were abducted from Iraq to be held and sold as sex slaves (sabaya). Into this dangerous, labyrinthine territory burst Mahmud and Ziyad, risking their lives to find and rescue the young women, and racing to get them out of the camp and to safety.

Mahmud, Ziyad and their fellow activists at the Yazidi Home Center are the subject of this riveting, urgent film by Swedish/Kurdish director Hogir Hirori (The Deminer, 2017). He captures the enormous task they face, their single-minded dedication and the nail-biting danger of their mission. Meanwhile back at their house, under the loving care of Mahmud’s wife, Siham, and his mother, Zahra, the rescued women begin the long journey to process their trauma.