Wednesday October 19th 2016
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Ethiopia 2013   99 minutes
Director: Zeresenay Berhane Mehan
Starring: Tizita Hagere, Meron Getnet.

‘Difret’ is an Amharic word with a double meaning: it conveys courage and daring, but it can also refer to the act of rape. Hirut is a 14-year schoolgirl who is abducted by a local gang, one of whom intends to make her his wife according to the ancient rural tradition of ‘telefa’, abducting girls for marriage. Although made illegal in Ethiopia in 1950 the law was rarely enforced. Hirut, and the female lawyer Meaza Ashenafi from Addis Ababa find themselves involved in a conflict between deep-seated cultural norms and the would-be social practices of a modernising African country. The story is based on a real-life case which rocked Ethiopia in the 1990s.