Screening

SVA Filmmakers Dialogue presents a preview screening of executive producer Angelina Jolie Pitt's Sundance Audience Award-winning Difret, directed by Zeresenay Berhane Mehari. Following the screening, there will be a Q&A with the film's director, lawyer who inspired the character Meaza and other participants in the true story.

Based on the inspirational true story of a young Ethiopian girl and a tenacious lawyer embroiled in a life-or-death clash between cultural traditions and their country's advancement of equal rights, Difret is the story of 14-year-old Hirut's abduction during her rural village’s tradition of kidnapping women for marriage. When she fights back, accidentally killing her captor and intended husband, local law demands a death sentence for Hirut, but Meaza, a tough and passionate lawyer from a women’s legal aide practice, steps in to fight for her. With both Hirut’s life and the future of the practice at stake, the two women must make their case for self-defense against one of Ethiopia’s oldest and most deeply-rooted traditions. Difret paints a portrait of a country in a time of great transformation and the brave individuals ready to help shape it.