Divorce Iranian Style

Internationally acclaimed director Kim Longinotto is one of the pre-eminent documentary filmmakers working today, renowned for creating extraordinary human portraits and tackling controversial topics with sensitivity and compassion. Longinotto’s films have won international acclaim and dozens of premiere awards at festivals worldwide, including the World Cinema Jury Prize in Documentary at Sundance for ROUGH AUNTIES. Highlights include perhaps one of her best known works, SISTERS IN LAW (2005), winner of a 2008 Peabody Award and two Cannes awards, including the Cannes Prix art et Essai Award; THE DAY I WILL NEVER FORGET (2003), which won the Amnesty International DOEN Award at IDFA and Best Doc UK Spotlight at Hot Docs; the recent HOLD ME TIGHT, LET ME GO (2007), winner of the Special Jury Prize at the International Documentary Film Festival, Amsterdam (IDFA); The BAFTA Award-winning DIVORCE IRANIAN STYLE (1998); DREAM GIRLS (1993), winner of Best Documentary at Films de Femmes, Creteil; and SHINJUKU BOYS (1995), winner for Outstanding Documentary at the Sand Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

Longinotto studied camera and directing at England’s National Film School (NFS), where she made PRIDE OF PLACE, a critical look at her boarding school, and THEATRE GIRLS, documenting a hostel for homeless women. After the NFS she worked as the cameraperson on a variety of documentaries for TV including CROSS AND PASSION, an account of Catholic women in Belfast, and UNDERAGE, a chronicle of unemployed adolescents in Coventry.

In 1986, Longinotto formed the production company Twentieth Century Vixen with Claire Hunt. Together they made FIRERAISER, a look at Sir Arthur Bomber Harris and the bombing of Dresden during WWII; EAT THE KIMONO, about the controversial Japanese feminist performer Hanayagi Genshu; HIDDEN FACES, the internationally acclaimed, collaborative documentary with/about Egyptian women; and THE GOOD WIFE OF TOKYO about women, love and marriage in Japanese society. Throughout this time, she made a series of ten broadcast and non-broadcast videos on special needs issues, including TRAGIC BUT BRAVE for Channel 4. With Jano Williams, Longinotto directed the audience pleaser DREAM GIRLS, a BBC-produced documentary of the spectacular Japanese musical theatre company; and SHINJUKU BOYS, about three Tokyo women who live as men. Next, she made ROCK WIVES for Channel 4 about the wives and girlfriends of rock stars, followed by DIVORCE IRANIAN STYLE with Ziba Mir-Hosseini, about women and divorce in Iran. She then made two short films for the BEST FRIENDS series on Channel 4: STEVE & DAVE – about two friends who work as a drag act and ROB & CHRIS about two homeless young men. Her following film, GAEA GIRLS made with Jano Williams, was about women wrestlers in Japan, and then RUNAWAY, also made with Ziba Mir-Hosseini, was set in a refuge for girls in Tehran. Her film THE DAY I WILL NEVER FORGET, about young girls in Kenya challenging the tradition of female circumcision premiered domestically at Sundance in 2003. More recent films include the highly acclaimed SISTERS IN LAW, about female justices in Kumba, Cameroon, and HOLD ME TIGHT, LET ME GO, about troubled children at England’s Mulberry Bush School. —WMM.com