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About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
RAI FILM
Login
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
Menu
About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
Login
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Films
found one film
Country
“Botswana”
x
Keywords
“Marriage”
x
Year of production
“2018”
x
Status
“A”
x
short films
1
Region
Southern Africa
1
Country
Botswana
1
x
Keywords
Family / Kinship
1
Gender Role and Identity
1
Law and Legislation / Bureaucracy
1
Love
1
Marriage
1
x
Directors
Werbner, Richard
1
Series
not set
1
Country of production
United Kingdom
1
Year of production
2018
1
x
Status
Film
Breaking the Yard
2018
21
‘
Directed by
Richard Werbner
.
"Breaking-the-Yard" documents the court hearings and troubled affairs of a quarrelsome young couple, a stay-at-home farmer and his police constable, town-savvy wife. They claim to be still in love. But when the husband confesses to adultery – ‘breaking-the-yard’ in Tswana terms – and the wife decides to fight for her rights in court battles, in a way once not allowed to young women, their marriage broker and senior relative finds himself very awkwardly placed. Even with his own bishop, he struggles to reach a good resolution. This remains uncertain, as arguments in the village’s customary court turn from the adultery issue. The primary question is: has care for the couple duly been fulfilled by this elder and others? Questions are raised, also, about the competence of the court itself, the obligations under parental law, and the direction of customary law as living law, following shifts in the accepted definition of adultery and due process. The approach through documentary film affords a close entry into the processes of litigation from family moot to village court, and the prospects for appeal in the hierarchy to involve a magistrate, and possibly others in the judicial bureaucracy.
Southern Africa
Family / Kinship
Gender Role and Identity
Law and Legislation / Bureaucracy
Love
Marriage