I knew that people would one day take to the street, and I knew that I would participate. - Hend Nafea
The Trials of Spring
Synopsis
When a young Egyptian woman travels from her village to Cairo to add her voice to the tens of thousands of Egyptians demanding an end to 60 years of military rule, she is arrested, beaten, and tortured by security forces and later punished and imprisoned by her family for daring to speak out. Unbreakable, she sets out in a search for freedom and social justice in a country in the grips of a power struggle, where there is little tolerance for the likes of her. Buoyed by the other activists she meets along the way, Hend Nafea’s story mirrors the trajectory of the Arab Spring—from the ecstasy of newfound courage to the agony of shattered dreams. In the end, despite crushing setbacks, it is resilience that sustains the hope for reform even in the darkest hours of repression.
Unchecked abuses of power, breaches of justice, and biased government court proceedings have continued to plague Egypt since Mubarak’s fall in 2011. Hend Nafea’s personal journey is a powerful example of the types of abuses extensively documented by Human Rights Watch.
Credits
Gini Reticker
Director
