India’s Daughter

This is the story of the brutal gang rape and murder in Delhi of 23 year-old medical student Jyoti Singh, and how the aftermath led to protests and serious soulsearching in India. Jyoti had always wanted to become a doctor, but her father had no hope of affording her education. She persuaded him to give the money he had managed to save for her marriage, to fund her admission to medical school, and worked night shifts at a call centre, sleeping just 3 hours a night for 4 years. On a mid-December night, 2012, Jyoti went with a male friend to a movie, and then left on a bus. There six men beat her friend unconscious and gang raped and beat her near death. Jyoti survived for 2 weeks, but then died after seven surgeries. The details of her horrific rape and murder captured the country’s attention, and demonstrations erupted throughout India. Through interviews with Jyoti’s family and friends, victims’ rights advocates, as well as from the assailants, their lawyers, and their families, the film paints a complicated picture of a country wrestling to embrace modernity while still dealing with the effects of extreme poverty, and outdated paternalistic attitudes towards women.