SAT-7 programme on abused Middle Eastern women airs at TV festival

A documentary from the series 'And I Am Not Just A Woman' will be screened at TV festival in Berlin.

Along with programmes from the BBC, German TV station ZDF and many European TV stations, SAT-7’s documentary 'Buthayna' has been selected for screening at the European Television Festival of Religious Programmes in Berlin, taking place until Sunday.

Seventy programmes from a total of 36 stations in Europe, Canada and the Middle East were entered into the competition, and 'Buthayna' is among the 23 programmes selected for screening at the festival.

The festival is held every three years and provides an opportunity to present and reward the very best of European television programmes that express, explore and examine values in relation to religion, faith and ethics.

The festival is organised by SIGNIS (the World Catholic Association for Communication) and WACC (World Association for Christian Communication) in cooperation with Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF).

Commenting on the programmes selected the jury notes: “The quality of the programmes has been good from the technical point of view as well as from the content. The subjects mostly followed the actual discussions of ethical values and socio-political developments like euthanasia, sexual abuse, torture and human rights. We appreciated the way the authors put on screen the spirituality of people in all kinds of programme formats.”

'Buthayna' is one of the episodes of the documentary series 'And I Am Not Just A Woman'. The series is part of a SAT-7 project which is shedding light on the challenges and rights of women who are the sole person responsible for their family. The project has had financial support from SAT-7 partners in Scandinavia. 'Buthayna' and the other documentaries from Egypt have specifically been funded by the Danish-Egyptian Dialogue Institute in Cairo.

Buthayna’s story illustrates some of the many struggles confronting female heads of household in the Arab world. Born in a traditional, Christian family, Buthayna has to marry the man her family chooses for her: her cousin, who is a drug addict. He is also unemployed and violent. Buthayna has to work in factories to feed her five children and pay for her husband’s addiction. When he dies, she establishes a small business, producing springs for the spare-parts industry. Working in a male-dominated field is difficult for her, but she is fighting hard to provide a better life for her children.

The producer of the documentary is Juliana Sfeir, SAT-7 Lebanon, and the director is Michael Bayouh, Egypt.