Alice Walker decided early in the process of writing her novel that she had not yet done enough to help stop this age-old practice. She resolved to make a documentary film that would further educate people about the harmful, sometimes deadly process of removing the clitoris - and often the remaining outer genitalia - as a means of maintaining tradition and ensuring a woman's "cleanliness" and fidelity. To make the film, Alice Walker teamed up with Indian-British filmmaker Pratibha Parmar, whose credits include several widely acclaimed documentaries focusing on issues of race, gender, and sexuality. This book chronicles their odyssey together. Warrior Marks describes a unique filmmaking journey, from Alice Walker's first letter to Pratibha Parmar proposing the idea of the film to the many journal entries and observations each of them made along the way.