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A WALK TO BEAUTIFUL
Directed by Mary Olive Smith
Produced by Amy Bucher, Steven Engel & Smith
Cinematography by Tony Hardmon & Smith
Editor by Andrew Ford
Released by Engel Entertainment
Language: English, Amharic & Oromiffa, with English subtitles
USA. 85 min. Not Rated

“Even death would be better than this,” says Ayehu, a 25-year-old trying to cope with humiliation and loneliness. Her story is one of five courageous tales Mary Olive Smith explores in this thoughtful and touching documentary, which follows the beautiful Ethiopian women as they try to reclaim their dignity, walking for days to a medical facility, the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital. Treatment there repairs obstetric fistula.

Many Ethiopian girls are married off as young as 12 or 13 years old, and their under-developed bodies are often ill-equipped for the rigors of childbirth. Doctors explain that because there is often no medical care, the girl’s small pelvic bones make labor difficult, if not impossible. The result: stillborn children and bowl and urinary incontinence; the women are shunned by their husbands, friends, and family. Hope for a better life spurs them onto medical treatment. At the clinic, Smith shows us the uplifting supportive sisterhood and their compassionate doctors. There, women like Ayehu, heal from the outside in.

A specific look at one African issue, Smith’s thoughtful interviews and sensitive cinematography examines just one problem plaguing women in developing nations. Viewers will end up taking these young women, like Ayehu, into their hearts and cheering with them as they face a better future. Elisa Klein
February 8, 2008