At 14 Rabha El Haimer was an illiterate child bride, beaten, raped and then rejected. Ten years later, she is a single mother, fighting to legalise her sham marriage and secure a future for her illegitimate daughter. With unprecedented access to the Moroccan justice system, “Bastards” follows Rabha’s fight from the Casablanca slums to the high courts.
Two Bangladeshi girls born and raised in London have weddings arranged for them against their will by their family. Shahanara, the rebel of the family, banished from the family in her teens for being "too Western", has to swap her pink hot pants for a sari as she goes off to the airport to meet her new Bangladeshi husband. Her sister Hushnara is the opposite of Shahanara; a devout Muslim who agrees to marry so she doesn't upset her parents.
It's a condition known as "hypertrichosis" or "Ambras Syndrome," but in the 1500s it would transform one man into a national sensation and iconic fairy-tale character. His name: Petrus Gonsalvus, more commonly known today as the hairy hero of Beauty and the Beast.
A Suitable Girl follows three young women in India struggling to maintain their identities and follow their dreams amid intense pressure to get married. The film examines the women's complex relationship with marriage, family, and society.
No, no quiero
Nepalese women are telling their stories arranged marriages. In the jungle of western Nepal lives Fofo, who is married off at the age of 10 to a man of 20. When Thuli becomes a widow after 10 childbirths she is mocked at by both neighbours and relatives. Savitri did not even know the name of the groom she was marrying and she was not even allowed to see him during the wedding ceremony. Nepalese law does not allow child marriage but the law does not reach girls who have never been to school and are living in areas with no roads. This film shows some of the reasons behind the 40 % guerrilla women in the Nepalese Maoist army.
Child marriages have been an unnoticed reality in some sections of the Muslim community in Sri Lanka. This film tells the story of Fatima, a 16-year old school girl, who is set to marry a man far older than her. Not only her right to education is denied but her consent to marriage too. Until she accidentally meets her future husband, she has not even seen him. She is caught up between her hopes and the reality of her destiny.
In a 16th-century European town, the ruling family has been given a prophecy that, should there ever be twin boys born, the younger will murder the older; so is dismayed when twins are born to the popular baron. The older grows to be a selfish, slovenly man, who inherits the castle at his father's death and becomes ruler over the formerly happy villagers. He enjoys his power until he learns his younger brother is returning from abroad and, afraid of the prophecy, he determines to murder his sibling, hide his body in the "black room" - an old torture chamber sealed away behind the fireplace - and then impersonate him, right down to his withered arm. In this way he hopes to not only avoid the prophecy, but also escape consequences of his other criminal deeds and obtain marriage to a local girl of the nobility...
As the romantic monsoon rains loom, the extended Verma family reunites from around the globe for a last-minute arranged marriage in New Delhi. This film traces five intersecting stories, each navigating different aspects of love as they cross boundaries of class, continent and morality.
In a barren, arranged marriage to an amateur swami who seeks enlightenment through celibacy, Radha's life takes an irresistible turn when her beautiful young sister-in-law seeks to free herself from the confines of her own loveless marriage.
TV writer Elliott Nash buries a blackmailer under the new gazebo in his suburban backyard. But the nervous man can't let the body rest there.
In 18th century France, Marquise de Merteuil asks her ex-lover Vicomte de Valmont to seduce the future wife of another ex-lover of hers in return for one last night with her. Yet things don’t go as planned.
A young man upsets his Punjabi family when he falls in love with an Irish schoolteacher.
Set in colonial French Indochina during the 1930s to 1950s, this is the story of Éliane Devries, a French plantation owner, and of her adopted Vietnamese daughter, Camille, set against the backdrop of the rising Vietnamese nationalist movement.
When the daughter of the miserly cooper Grandet is up for marriage, both families Des Grassins and Cruchot want to marry their sons to her and her substantial dowry. But the girl shows more interest in the impoverished cousin, whom she entrusts her entire fortune to.
As Garibaldi's troops begin the unification of Italy in the 1860s, an aristocratic Sicilian family grudgingly adapts to the sweeping social changes undermining their way of life. Proud but pragmatic Prince Don Fabrizio Salina allows his war hero nephew, Tancredi, to marry Angelica, the beautiful daughter of gauche, bourgeois Don Calogero, in order to maintain the family's accustomed level of comfort and political clout.
In a country where women are in charge, a man goes to unusual lengths to make his dream of marrying the daughter of a military leader come true.
Nandini has to choose between Sameer, the man who taught her to fall in love; and Vanraj, the man from whom she learnt how to abide and fulfill promises of love.
The story takes place in Haifa, Israel, in 1979, during three days before the Shabbat. A young woman trying to raise three children, work from home, and observe the strict Moroccan traditions of her family finds herself at constant odds with her husband and her brothers, who want her to stay married and leave behind the notions of being loved and free.
After moving from Calcutta to New York, members of the Ganguli family maintain a delicate balancing act between honoring the traditions of their native India and blending into American culture. Although parents Ashoke and Ashima are proud of the sacrifices they make to give their children opportunities, their son Gogol strives to forge his own identity without forgetting his heritage.