The Milk of Sorrow (2009) — Peru

After Fausta's Quechua mother, Perpetua, was savagely raped during a time of terrorist war in 1980's Peru, the daughter was so traumatized that she followed the example of one of her mother's friends to prevent her own rape. She took measures that were not only extreme but bizarre in order to protect her own chastity. The doctor identified the cause of her menstrual bleeding since she was a girl, but her uncle, who cared for Fausta, insisted that he didn't know what he was talking about. During the time of terror, the uncle told the doctor, "her mother transmitted her fear through her breast milk, and we call it 'the milk of sorrow.'" Fausta tries to move beyond her emotional trauma (she has very few lines in the film), but poverty, superstition, a lonely Andean landscape, and an exploitative rich employer make it difficult. The Milk of Sorrow was nominated for an Oscar for best foreign film in 2009. In Spanish with English sub-titles.