Driving With Selvi

Beautifully simple and simply beautiful, this unexpectedly joyous documentary tracks ten years in the life of Selvi, a young South Indian woman who has dragged herself free of hardship and horror by sheer force of will. Married at 14 to a man who beat her and hired her out to be raped by his friends, Selvi ran away to a local girls’ shelter. It’s here that we first meet her, at age 18, shell-shocked but still fighting, and learning to drive.

Through sensitive but probing interviews and footage of Selvi’s day-to-day life, Canadian director Elisa Paloschi makes us feel privileged to share the experiences of this courageous, principled and utterly charismatic young woman.