Kim Longinotto

Biography

Documentary filmmaker Kim Longinotto highlights the plight of female victims of oppression or discrimination. Tackling a wide range of difficult subjects, her films attempt to tell stories that draw the audience into other peoples’ lives to experience the world with them.

While studying, she made her first documentary, Pride of Place (1976), a scathing look at her boarding school that was shown at the London Film Festival. Theatre Girls (1978), about a hostel for homeless women, followed soon after.

Her first film in Japan, Eat The Kimono (1989), depicted the controversial feminist performer Hanayagi Genshu. Since then, she has directed many films for broadcasters including BBC, HBO, PBS and Channel 4.

In 1986, she established the production company Twentieth Century Vixen with Claire Hunt.

Her documentaries have won several awards at festivals worldwide, including a Peabody Award and the Cannes Film Festival’s Prix Art et Essai for Sisters in Law (2005), set in Kumba, Cameroon; a Special Jury Prize at the International Documentary Film Festival, Amsterdam (IDFA), for Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go (2007), set in an Oxfordshire school for disturbed children; World Cinema Grand Jury Prize in Documentary at Sundance Film Festival (2009) for Rough Aunties; a BAFTA for Pink Saris (2010); and World Cinema Documentary Directing Award at Sundance for Dreamcatcher (2015).

She studied English and European literature at Essex University, and cinematography and directing at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, England.

Longinotto was born in 1952 in London where she continues to live and work.

SAF Participation:
Sharjah Film Platform 4 (2021)