A much-acclaimed documentary will be screened Saturday at Our Lady of the Lake University. The film focuses on what's called honor killing. Mary Ann Smothers Bruni says most Americans have a skewed understanding of what honor killings even are.
"The film is about women in Iraq trying to stop honor killing. We always think this is a Muslim thing. I don't agree with that at all,” she said. “When I was at University of Madrid at graduate school, honor killing was considered Roman Catholic and the church did not deny it."
Bruni discounts the specific Islamic connection and instead focuses on something she thinks is far more widespread, crossing borders, religions and cultures.
"Thinking of women as property. The woman's there. She's for your service, to have your children, so she disappoints in some way, it's all right to do away with her,” she said. “And we actually have a lot of honor killing in the southwest of the United States."
Bruni has lived all over the world, including several years in the middle east. But the roots for her distaste for honor killing run all the way back to south Texas.
"Thirty years ago in San Antonio, if they were helping some woman, the police would not do anything until the woman was dead,” she said. “So this is a worldwide problem. It's not particularly a Muslim problem."
“Quest For Honor” isher first production out of the gate,and was selected for Sundance, while winning the Amsterdam Film Festival.
"I was totally shocked,” she said. “I'd never made a film before; I'd never thought about it."
Now that film is coming to San Antonio, playing for free at 2 p.m. Nov. 4 at Thiry Auditorium at Our Lady of The Lake.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOVVdbyQsvI
