The Carrier

When 28-year-old Mutinta Mweemba first shares all the hopes and dreams she once nurtured as a child, her aspirations seem no different from those of many other young women around the world. She dreams of meeting and falling in love with a handsome man, being married and raising children and hopefully one day providing those children with a better life than her own. But Mutinta's dreams were never realized. Her soft-spoken husband came with two other wives, and the remote Zambian village that she calls home is being ravaged by a deadly new epidemic - a mysterious disease called “AIDS.” Set against the backdrop of today's most urgent plague, Maggie Betts's The Carrier is a stunning portrait of both a family and a community caught in a desperate struggle to emancipate their next generation from AIDS. As all the adults in her marriage, including Mutinta, soon discover that they are afflicted with HIV, tensions within the household threaten to tear her family apart and the fragile love between a husband and wife finds itself challenged. All the while Mutinta also learns that she's become pregnant again, her quest to the save her baby from her disease, becomes the family's last hope for redemption. In its breathtaking visuals and unique lyrical style, The Carrier is a story of hope and renewal, of love and dignity, told through the eyes of an increasingly determined young heroine who refuses to be overwhelmed by the forces that surround her. It is an inspiring and emotional testament to today's modern Africa and proud people struggling not only to understand and make sense of, but also persevere and overcome what has happened to their world.