Beloved Friend
A Feature Film Script. Drama.
By Nancy Gilsenan Hersage and Shirley Tallman
Based on the award-winning play Beloved Friend.
It’s 1967 and Kristin, a high school student in Minneapolis, begins corresponding with an African girl of her own age who lives in Rhodesia, a nation in the midst of a war for independence from Great Britain. Kristin’s relatively affluent life in Minneapolis is in sharp contrast to that of her young African friend, Rachel, for whom life is a struggle against both poverty and indignity. As their lives remain worlds apart, the two girls begin to grow closer, with Kristin facing issues of college, career, family and marriage, while Rachel becomes more and more involved in the war, politics and her own desire for love and children.
In odd, unexpected ways, each young woman affects and helps the other through the challenges that face them. The girls mature into adulthood and become one another’s closest confidant. Rachel helps Kristin find meaning in a life that seems increasingly vacuous, while Kristin helps Rachel secure a higher education that will eventually lead to her appointment as the new Minister of Education in the new Zimbabwe.
Even as Rachel’s fortunes are rising, life for Kristin begins to unravel. Their star-crossed relationship reaches is apex when the two friends finally meet for the very first time fifteen years after their first letter and in a way neither woman ever expected.
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