THE BRIDE

Three years after the Genocide Against Tutsis, Eva, a young woman with dreams of going to medical school is abducted and subjected to, Guterura, a form of traditional mariage. Feeling abandoned by her conservative family which pushes her to accept her new situation, Eva bonds with the cousin-sister of her “husband". When she discovers the tragic stories of her "husband's" family, Eva is torn between staying or running away.

  • Myriam U. BIRARA
    Director
  • Myriam U. BIRARA
    Writer
  • KIVU RUHORAHOZA
    Producer
  • Myriam U. BIRARA
    Producer
  • Sandra UMULISA
    Key Cast
    "EVA"
  • Aline AMIKE
    Key Cast
    "husband's cousin"
  • Daniel GAGA
    Key Cast
    "Silas"
  • Fabiola MUKASEKURU
    Key Cast
    "MUHOZA Zawadi"
  • Justine MUSABYEYEZU
    Key Cast
    "Eva's mother"
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 13 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    February 10, 2023
  • Country of Origin:
    Rwanda
  • Country of Filming:
    Rwanda
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16.9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Berlin international film festival
    Berlin
    Germany
    February 19, 2023
    world premiere
    SPECIAL MENTION for GWFF BEST FIRST FEATURE AWARD JURY
  • Las Palmas international film festival
    Las Palmas de gran canaria
    Spain
    April 21, 2023
    Spanish premiere
    The Silver Lady HARIMAGUADA de Plata award and CIMA award.
Director Biography - Myriam U. BIRARA

Myriam U. Birara is a Rwandan filmmaker and visual artist (painter) born in 1992.She holds a Bachelor’s degree in finance.
Myriam got her first taste in filmmaking in 2010 and attended her first film workshop in 2011. Myriam directed three shorts including Imuhira, which premiered in competition at Locarno International Film Festival in 2021 and won the Medien Patent Verwaltung AG Award, IMUHIRA short film was shown in important film festival like BFI London film festival, Melbourne International film festival…also in 2022 Imuhira won The best east African short film Award in URUSARO women film festival in Rwanda.

In February 2023 Myriam’s first feature film THE BRIDE was premiered at Berlinale in forum section and won a Jury special mention for the GWFF best first feature film Award.
April 2023 THE BRIDE was part of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria international film festival in feature film official competition where it won The Silver Lady HARIMAGUADA de Plata award and CIMA award.

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Director Statement

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

I grew up in the mid 90s hearing stories of young women who would get abducted and forced into marriages with strangers. Having lost their most prized asset, their virginity, these unwilling brides would find themselves stuck in a situation were fleeing back to their families would mean living a life of shame and scorn. They were considered damaged goods.

Some of my own aunts were forced into non-consensual marriages and a few of my uncles built their own families this way. And those couples still exist tens of years later, their children have grown up, they are regular members of the community, as if there was no original sin at the genesis of these families. I grew up asking myself how I would have dealt with a forced marriage myself. Would I have given up on my dreams? Would I have accepted to have regular sex with a stranger? Would I have been courageous? Rebellious? Accommodating? Compliant? Would I have chosen to see the bigger picture: family renewal in the wake of a Genocide where many of men and women of my community had been massacred?
These questions haunted me and led to the writing of my debut film, The Bride.

The character of Eva was my worst nightmare and it became urgent to me to tell this story as a feature film.

The setting is one of a traumatic era for my entire country, Rwanda, a couple years after the Genocide against the Tutsi.

These forced marriages became a particularly painful reality for those abductee brides who found themselves “married” to broken men such as the character of Silas, a former soldier who came back to find his family massacred. The mission of these women was not just being obedient wives but resuscitators of nearly extinct families.

Rwanda is a country that has made enormous progress in the protection of women and girls rights. But with this film, I wanted to shed a light on this almost forgotten reality of a Rwanda that seems so distant yet the last victims of these traditional marriages live among us carrying unimaginable and unseen wounds. To those who stayed and those who ran away, this film is my tribute to their resilience.