By Maureen Ryan | Chicago Tribune

A Walk to Beautiful may be the most moving documentary of the year. I spent parts of this hourlong Nova installment wiping away tears, contemplating the suffering and resilience of the young Ethiopian women profiled.

A Walk to Beautiful, which aired earlier this month on PBS stations and encores at 1:30 a.m. tonight on WLRN-Ch. 17, lets the women and the doctors who treat them at Addis Ababa’s Fistula Hospital tell their own stories. But sometimes words are not necessary. The look on the face of one woman, Aheyu, as she boards a bus and leaks urine on to the floor, tells how wretched she feels.

Like millions of women in developing countries, childbirth caused major damage to her underdeveloped body. The process punched a hole between Aheyu’s birth canal and bladder. As a result of her incontinence, her community shuns her.

A friend tells her of the fistula hospital, where free operations can fix the damage. “How can they bring you back to life?” Aheyu nervously asks of the surgery. But the fact is, these operations bring these women back to life in any number of ways.

For the Ethiopian women, being shunned by their families and villages is crushing to their spirits. Aheyu’s own mother speaks matter-of-factly about making her daughter live in a rough shelter outside the main house. But in an almost wordless scene, the mother weeps and presses scarce money in her daughter’s hand as she heads off to the hospital.

Finding sympathy and a community of other women with fistula is a revelation for women such as Wubete. “They are not revolted by me here,” says the 17-year-old patient, who talks of being married off by age 11.

This poignant film follows three women’s cases and captures daily life at the hospital, which is supported by charity. Wubete’s journey ends in an unlikely place, and the smile on Aheyu’s face after surgery is heart-piercing. Seeing women like her go from contemplating suicide to choosing colorful new clothes for their trip home is, indeed, beautiful.