This debut drama from Yemeni director Khadija Al-Salami is a hard-hitting, ultimately hopeful attack on the practice of child marriage.
Pairing the beauty of rural Yemen with a nuanced script and a compelling lead performance, the drama follows ten year old Nojoom as she is sold into marriage with a man twenty years her senior. Motivated by a complex mix of poverty, honour and custom, her father and husband see little wrong in their actions. But when Najoom runs away and brings her case before a city judge, the horror and courage of her story unfold in effective flashback sequences which suggestively place Yemen’s laws themselves on trial.
