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Monday’s Girls
England, 1993, 50 minutes, Color, VHS, Subtitled
Order No. W99049
This fascinating documentary, by the filmmaker of THE BODY BEAUTIFUL, follows two young Nigerian women’s different experiences of a traditional rite of passage. Young virgins, irabo, spend five weeks in “fattening rooms”, emerging to dance before the villagers and to be married. The girls wear heavy copper coils on their legs to enforce inactivity as they are waited on and honored by their families. One of the young village women, Florence, is keen to take part. But Akisiye, who returns from the city at her father’s behest, is not certain she wants to. Combining voice-over and interviews, MONDAY'S GIRLS documents tradition, modernity, dissent and contradiction in African women’s lives.
QUOTES

“A daring look at the negotiation of multiple issues of gendered identities, individual versus communal voices, traditions versus modernity.”
Maureen Eke
Central Michigan University
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