Elechek

Film Screening: Elechek and New Penelope

Location: OSI-New York
Event Date(s): November 15, 2006
Speaker(s): Nurgul Asylbekova, Nadezhda Azhgikhina, Zuhra Halimova, Armenuhi Tadvosyan, Elena Vitenberg
Multimedia:   AUDIO

The OSI Network Women's Program hosted a film screening and panel discussion featuring two films from Gender Montage, a documentary series exploring the lives and struggles of women in post-Soviet countries.

The event featured the following films from Central Asia:

Elechek (26 minutes; Kyrgyzstan, 2006), director and writer: Nailya Rakhmadieva.
Sairash was contentedly married for more than a quarter century until the day her husband took a second, younger wife.  Sairash—who would not accept her new circumstances, including the quarrels and insults—walked out. Her community and relatives blamed her, divorce laws would not protect her, and any division of property would inflict pain on her beloved children. Though Sairash’s decision set her on a path of hardship, it was the path to her true self: strong, independent, and capable of standing up for her own beliefs. Sairash’s experience demonstrates that the personal is indeed political.

New Penelope (25 minutes; Tajikistan, 2006), director and cameraman: Georgii Dzalaev.
Economic depression and political chaos force Tajik men to become migrant laborers, working in unsafe conditions and with inconsistent pay. Tajik women attempt to keep their families alive and, in some cases, enter polygamous marriages to feed themselves and their families. Often these women relate to Penelope, the wife of the mythical hero Odysseus, who waits many years for her husband to return. The men working abroad and the women left behind face the same fate: hard work and human rights abuses. This film allows the viewer to experience the hardships of migrant labor through the eyes of both women and men.

View these and other Gender Montage films.

The screening was followed by a panel discussion on the issues addressed in the films, and how these and other films have been used as advocacy tools for women's rights in the former Soviet Union. Speakers included:

• Zuhra Halimova, Executive Director of OSI-Tajikistan;
• Nurgul Asylbekova, Women’s Program Director of Soros Foundation-Kyrgyzstan;
• Armenuhi Tadevosyan, Women’s Program Coordinator of OSIAF-Armenia;
• Elena Vitenberg, Media & Policy Manager of the Institute for Social and Gender Policy;
• Nadezdha Azgikhina, Director of the Association of Women Journalists.

Phoebe Schreiner, Program Officer of the Network Women's Program, moderated the panel.