Middle Eastern Christian TV broadcaster SAT-7 is pleased to announce that its documentary, Rough Ragged Journey, will be screened at the 4th Baghdad International Film Festival (BIFF) on 7th October. BIFF serves as a showcase for the discovery of new and emerging talent in Iraq and around the Arab world. SAT-7’s documentary will compete with 18 other films for a prize in the Human Images category on the theme of human rights.
Rough Ragged Journey was commissioned as part of SAT-7’s Female Heads of Household campaign, highlighting the issues that surround the subject of sole female providers in a patriarchal culture. The film chronicles the struggle of a Lebanese widow to obtain for her four children something they could not earn at birth—Lebanese citizenship. Lebanese law states that children inherit the citizenship of their father. Samira, the film’s protagonist, had married an Egyptian. Even though her children were born and raised in Lebanon to a Lebanese mother, they had no legal rights to education, medical care or employment.
The film tells the story of how Samira has fought over many years to keep her children from being expelled from Lebanon and for them to be allowed to work. A long court case which ruled in Samira’s favour in 2009 was overturned a year later, leaving Samira’s family heartbroken and without any legal rights.
Although she has little to show for her efforts, Samira has not given up yet. At the end of the film, she tells the audience, “I will keep on struggling for the government to grant me my rights!”
Produced by Juliana Sfeir and directed by Dany Jneidy, the story touches on a number of human rights issues. SAT-7 celebrates the BIFF screening of Rough Ragged Journey as an opportunity to show that God cares about the earthly struggles of His people, and is honoured to compete alongside the wider broadcast media industry in the region.
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