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Women were on the front lines of the uprisings that swept the Arab world in 2011. 

Synopsis

Women were on the front lines of the uprisings that swept the Arab world in 2011. They took to the streets beside men, their signs held high. But as the jubilation of revolution gave way to the convoluted process of governing—and often the chaos and blood of war—women disappeared from the mainstream story. Behind the scenes, however, they continue to play vital roles. The Trials of Spring aims to elevate the stories of these women. This special programme features four short films profiling women from Bahrain, Libya, Syria, and Yemen along with a discussion with director and executive producer Gini Reticker, producer Beth Levison, and Rothna Begum, Middle East and North Africa researcher in the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. This programme will run 90 minutes.

Credits

Gini Reticker

Director, Executive Producer

Gini Reticker is the Oscar Nominated and Emmy Winning Producer and Director of Pray the Devil Goes Back to Hell, Asylum, and the celebrated PBS Television Series, Women, War & Peace. She is the Executive Producer of The Trials of Spring, and directed the feature documentary layer of the series.

Rothna Begum

Researcher, Human Rights Watch

Rothna Begum is the women’s rights researcher for the Middle East and North Africa region. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch, Rothna worked for Amnesty International where she acquired five and a half years’ knowledge and experience of researching human rights in the Middle East and North Africa region. She gained expertise on the Gulf primarily specializing in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Qatar, and Oman, but has also spent some time working on Iran, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait. She researched and campaigned on a whole host of human rights issues in such countries including on freedom of expression, association and assembly, counter-terrorism, women’s rights, refugees, migrants and asylum seekers, corporal punishment and the death penalty. Rothna holds a LLB in Law and a LLM in Legal Theory from the London School Economics and Political Science. She speaks Bengali, Hindi, Urdu and Arabic.