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Quest for Honor (2009/2010)
Opened: 08/06/2010 Limited
| Limited | 08/06/2010 | |
| IFC Center | 08/06/2010 - 08/12/2010 | 7 days |
| Arclight/Holly... | 08/13/2010 - 08/19/2010 | 7 days |
Trailer: Click for trailer
Genre: Documentary (In English and Kurdish with English subtitles)
Rated: Unrated
Synopsis
The alarming rise in "honor killing," the heinous act of men killing daughters, sisters, and wives who threaten "family honor," endangers tens of thousands of women in Iraq, Turkey, Jordan and adjoining countries. Global communication through satellite television, Internet, and cell phones has raised the expectations of young Middle Eastern women, who now are not content to marry a much older relative their father might chooses and live a life of servitude. While young women respond to new ideas from cyber pals in Los Angeles or episodes of popular Western sit-coms, their fathers and brothers demand strict tribal justice for their acts. Particularly in rural areas women have been killed simply for having unfamiliar phone numbers on their cell phones or speaking to men who are not relatives.
The Women's Media Center of Suleymaniyah, Iraq, has joined forces with Iraq's Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) to end the heinous practice of "honor killing" of women.
First time filmmaker Mary Ann Smothers Bruni -- who is an author and photographer -- documents these horrible acts and the people who are fighting to end these senseless killings that take place in Kurdistan in the new feature film QUEST FOR HONOR.
A call to the Women's Media Center reveals that a woman's body has been found in a field near Ranya, a border town in the "Wild East" where Iraq, Iran, and Turkey meet. RUNAK Faraj, the center's leader, and her colleague Kalthum Murad Ibrahim are requested to join local Ranya Police Chief Abudullah at the crime scene. Abdullah's cell phone shows a most devastating image of a young woman clad in blue jeans and grabbing her hair in the agony of death. The woman is named Nesrin, a young widow dispossessed of her children who has no apparent family close by. Her mother is dead and her father living abroad. No one cares for her, and no one knows who murdered her.
"Why doesn't the government fund shelters for homeless woman rather than spend resources investigating their inevitable murders," Kalthum asks Ranya's mayor.
It is answers to these questions that QUEST FOR HONOR attempts to find as the camera follows Faraj and her colleagues as they investigate and report murder and violent cases like this one and others.
In Suleymaniyah, a woman is shot at the Asuda Safe House. "The shooting at Asuda posses a threat to all women," proclaims Runak Rauf, director of the Women Media Center. Journalists Hemen Kaikai and Lawen Asad investigate and talk to the victim and her assailant in an eye-opening interview. Jasmin (a pseudonym), now in a shelter provided by the KRG's newly formed Agency to Prevent Violence Against Women tells the interviewers she was shot three times while preparing for evening prayer. Captain Nariman reveals that Jasmin remains in great danger even though the Agency has taken three men into custody.
Rewan, the Women's Media Center newspaper, vigorously pursues these cases in an effort to get the stories out, educate the public, and change tradition. Kurdish main media follows their lead.
QUEST FOR HONOR exposes these killings and violent acts, as the police Chief Abdullah states his frustration on camera that "no one is convicted." Interviews with victims of attempted honor killings, their perpetrators, the police, government officials, and community leaders coupled with the filmed investigations of these killings provide insight into a practice that must be stopped. QUEST FOR HONOR is produced and directed by Mary Ann Smothers Bruni for SB Productions and will make its world premiere at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival in January.
