The Milk of Sorrow

The Milk of Sorrow Spanish La Teta Asustada , The frightened teat is a 2009 film by Peruvian director Claudia Llosa and coproduced by Peru and Spain. The film stars Magaly Solier and addresses the fears of abused women during Perus recent history. It won the 2009 Golden Bear award and FIPRESCI prize at the Berlin International Film Festival, as well as the award for best movie in theFestival Internacional de Cine de Guadalajara in Mexico. It was nominated for the 82nd Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, becoming the first Peruvian film to be nominated for the award.

Between 1980 and 1992 Peru experienced a period of extreme violence, particularly in the Andean region, because of the uprising of the Maoist group Sendero Luminoso Shining Path and the actions of the paramilitary and state armed forces. By 1990 the conflict had reached Lima, the capital city of Peru. Claudia Llosa refers in her film to the folk belief that the trauma experienced by women who were raped by members of security force was passed on to their children through their breast milk. Thus, this period of violence continues to affect not only those who experienced it but also the next generation.Llosas work is a psychological as well as sociological approach to theyears of conflict, and is critical of the mass rapes used by the army as a strategy of war. The film is based on the book Entre Prjimos, by Kimberly Theidon. In her book, Theidon documents a number of testimonials by women who were raped by as many as thirty men at a time, atrocities that often resulted in pregnancies. Theidon states that when survivors of sexual violence speak about their experiences, they place a responsibility on their listeners to respond to what they have heard. Llosas film, too, is an attempt to respond to such testimonies. ........

Source: Wikipedia