This African film is one I found in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I knew nothing about it before reading up on it, but I was definitely up for trying it. Basically set in an African village, the people carry out the tradition of 4-9-year-old girls being "cut" (the act of female genital mutilation). All children know that this operation is horrible torture and sometimes lethal, and all adults know that following the ritual some women can only give birth by Caesarean section. It comes to the day for this ritual, and six girls are going to be approached, two of them drown themselves in a well to escape the operation, the four remaining girls are protected by Collé Gallo Ardo Sy (Fatoumata Coulibaly), who seven years ago refused to have her daughter circumcised. The woman uses a coloured rope attached to the lower poles outside a house door, this is is known as Moolaadé ("magical protection"), no one dares to step over the rope to fetch the children, the "magic" can only be revoked by Collé herself. The relatives of Collé's husband persuade him to whip her in public to make her revoke, and opposite groups of women shout to her to revoke or to remain focused on protecting the girls, but none of the women interfere. Collé is close to collapsing following the attempts from tormentors to end the protection of the girls, the merchant called Mercenaire (Dominique Zeïda) takes action and stop the maltreatment, therefore after leaving the village he is hunted by those opposed, and is murdered out of sight. In the end all women are united because of the pain caused by genital cutting, they pursue those who carry it out and shout "No more genital cutting!", and Collé is able to remove the moolaadé, all four girls are safe. Also starring Maïmouna Hélène Diarra as Hadjatou, Salimata Traoré as Amasatou, Mah Compaoré as Leader of the purifiers and Aminata Dao as Alima Bâ. The subject of female genital mutilation has been tackled in film before, it is a highly sensitive and controversial issue, still practised in African countries, this film truly does emphasise the human aspect of the topic, there is some violence along the way of course, but it is a compassionate story, a most watchable social drama. Very good!