As a child in Kenya, the filmmaker Beryl Magoko was subjected to a life-threatening ritual which many girls undergo even today. At the time, “female circumcision” – a friendly, barely adequate term for the genital mutilation she endured with horrible pain – seemed to her like something that was an integral part of growing up. Today she knows that it doesn’t have to be that way. Knowledge alone doesn’t help her, so she meets other victims who, like her, waver between anger and shame and still suffer from the procedure decades later.

With her personal and highly political film, Beryl Magoko sets out on a journey that leads her both into the past and the future. Strikingly frank, but without anger, she confronts her own family with questions and reproaches. At the same time she is facing the decision whether to undergo reconstructive surgery and begin a new chapter in her life.

Luc-Carolin Ziemann

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Awarded with the Film Prize Leipziger Ring