Thursday, August 20, 2009

A movie about an honour killing

Recently there were several reports in the news about Honour killings, where a woman is killed by her family for dishonouring the family in some way. While thinking about the reports, I developed an outline for a movie, but I need to research the subject more before I can finish it.

I would like to hear from people who are familiar with cultures where honour killing happens to tell me if the plot of the story is plausible.

A young woman and her brother are very close to each other. Then he comes to her one day to say that he has been asked to kill her to satisfy the honour of the family. He doesn’t want to do it, but if she doesn’t, he must. She escapes to Canada, leaving a suicide note.


About 15 to 20 years later, she has a new identity and is a successful lawyer. One day she sees her brother and he seems to be following her. She is worried that he will now kill her, but hopes that he no longer bound by the obligation. She would like to be close to him again.


She finds out that her brother, his wife and her mother are living in Canada. She approaches first her mother, then her sister-in-law trying to find out what he knows and what he intends to do. They don’t recognize her at first; having believed that she was dead. They are not sure if he knows she is alive or has plans to kill her. Her brother keeps his feelings and thoughts to himself.


Finally he contacts her and asks for a meeting at a secluded spot and she agrees. He does not seem to recognize her and it turns out that he wants her help as a lawyer.



There will be other subplots in the final script.