Difret

Film Review by Rachel Bowles | 24 Jun 2015
Film title: Difret
Director: Zeresenay Mehari
Starring: Tizita Hagere, Meron Getnet
Release date: 29 Jun
Certificate: 12A

Zeresenay Berhane Mehari’s film is unusual for a work of Ethiopian cinema. Shot in 35mm, it eschews the more export-friendly English language for Amharic, and boasts Ethiopia’s first ever female director of photography and a large cast of predominantly female actors.

The story follows Hirut, a 14-year-old girl, who's abducted on her way home from school by a local gang of men on horseback. Beaten and raped by her would-be groom, Hirut snatches a gun and shoots him in self-defence. When Hirut is arrested for murder, humanitarian lawyer Meaza is determined to fight for the girl's right to freedom, negotiating the ingrained misogyny of both Ethiopian tradition and modern bureaucracy.

Difret is thus concerned with Ethiopian feminism in both method and narrative, unflinchingly telling the story of how one girl’s unprecedented legal victory led to the criminalisation of “telefa” or the abduction of girls for forced marriage, still endemic in Ethiopia today. [Rachel Bowles]

Released on DVD by Soda Pictures