Six Days

Filmmaker Nikolina Gillgren profiles three female activists doing their part to improve the lives of women in countries where war has eroded their autonomy. Lanja, a Kurdish journalist, founded Warvin, a women's rights organization in Erbil in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. She is particularly concerned about honor killings, in which perpetrators, family members, authorities, and even those who survive such attacks put the blame on “accidents,” although Lanja can tell when their accounts don't add up (Gillgren obscures the faces and voices of victims she interviews in the film). “My work,” Lanja explains, “deals with leveling the playing field for men and women.” Nelly leads West Point Women's Health and Development Organization in Monrovia, Liberia, where 14 years of civil war has contributed to widespread poverty and a high maternal mortality rate. During the war, she lost her mother, brother, and sister; now, she oversees a women's sewing cooperative that generates both income and camaraderie. Maia formed an aid organization in Gali in the breakaway region of Abkhazia in Georgia, where kidnappings and forced marriages have become commonplace in the wake of the Soviet collapse. The resulting economic fallout has contributed to medical neglect—particularly in regards to gynecological matters—and Maia works with a mobile group of doctors (a gynecologist, a pediatrician, and a psychologist) while also helping to teach sex education classes to both girls and boys. A solid tribute to three women who are making a difference in the face of tough circumstances, this is recommended. Aud: C, P. (K. Fennessy)