- Director: Gini Reticker
- Type: Documentaries
- Year: 2016
- Country: USA
- Language: English
- Length: 80 Minutes
When 21-year-old Hend Nafea travels from her village to Cairo to add her voice to the hundreds of thousands of Egyptians demanding an end to sixty years of military rule, she is beaten, arrested, and tortured. After her release, she is punished and imprisoned by her family for daring to speak out and bringing shame to their name. Unbreakable, she sets out in search of freedom and justice in a country gripped by a dangerous power struggle. Buoyed by the other activists she meets along the way, she forges ahead despite the odds mounting against her. Hend’s story mirrors the trajectory of the Arab Spring—from the ecstasy of newfound courage to the agony of shattered dreams. In the end, despite crushing setbacks, it is resilience that sustains the hope for reform for Hend and her fellow activists, even during the darkest hours of their struggle for a better Egypt.
Date: Sunday, February 21, 12PM
Location: Lehman Auditorium, 202 Altschul Hall
Q&A with producer Beth Levison to follow screening
Filmmaker Bio:
Gini Reticker, an Athena Award-winner, has been directing and producing award-winning independent documentary films for over 20 years. Reticker directed Pray the Devil Back to Hell (2008), the inspiring story of Liberian women whose actions helped bring an end to a brutal civil war. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival where it won the Audience Award. She produced the Academy Award-nominated short Asylum (2003) the story of a Ghanaian woman who fled female genital mutilation to seek political asylum in the U.S. That same year she produced A Decade Under the Influence that looks at the heyday of 1970s filmmakers. It was nominated for an Emmy and garnered the National Review Board Award for Best Documentary. She received an Emmy for Ladies First (2004), the story of women rebuilding post-genocide Rwanda. Her first film, The Heart of the Matter (1994) a groundbreaking film about women and AIDS, won the Sundance Freedom of Expression Award. She was a creator and executive producer of the PBS series Women, War & Peace (2011), recipient of the Overseas Press Club’s Edward R. Murrow Award as well as The Academy of Television Honors Award. Reticker has also coproduced or executive produced such notable films as The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)— nominated for both an Academy Award and an Independent Spirit Award; 1971, Alias Ruby Blade, Citizen Koch, Hot Girls Wanted, and She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry.
