Kim Longinotto

Kim Longinotto is an Eglish documentary filmmaker, known as feminist director who describes women who struggle with racial oppression, discrimination, and violence. She creates films inly with female  crews. She focuses on women's issue world wide; the counties she focuses on hew works  are England, Japan, Iran,Kenya and Cameroon.

 Divorce Iranian Style‬ is a documentary in 1999, revealing extreme gender discrimination in Iran. Longinotto focuses on a family court, which symbolizes gender-based double standards, and gives a glimpse into the sufferings of women forced into the abyss.. While men are allowed to choose divorce on their free will, women do not have the right. A "wife" must wager her entire life when she files for divorce. Deprived of rights, women wave the hem of the chadol, symbol of oppression, and call out, cry and sue as long as their voices hold out, clinging onto pale hopes as though thirsting for freedom.

‪   This documentary is relevant not only to gender issues but also religion. In the article of Veiled Threat by Arwa Aburawa Bitch Magazine, the controversial works of  Princess Hija's on billboards are indicated.The reason her representation of her is controversial is its extremely against the religious beliefs and rules, and claimed as anti-feminist. However, a women commented on her action saying "'I’d actually love it if it turns out she’s not a Muslim, because it lends credibility to the idea that the dislike of being exposed to ‘visual aggression’ is not necessarily rooted in religious belief. Fed up with women being used to sell products, hijabizing ads could be a way to ‘take back’ women’s rights to their bodies.'” (Aburawa) I agree with her point that visual aggression’ is not necessarily rooted in religious belief. Also, I really like Princess Hija's works because they convey immesurable messages, and the responses from different race, gender and ethnicity, reveal the gender inequality and unjust society for women. "Her work attempts to remove the hijab from its gendered and religious context and convert it into a symbol of empowerment and re-embodiment.
"(Aburawa)



   SISTERS IN LAW‬ is filmed in 2005, Winner of the Prix Art et Essai at the Cannes Film Festival. In the little town of Kumba, Cameroon, there have been no convictions in spousal abuse cases for 17 years. But two women determined to change their community are making progress that could change their country. This fascinating, often hilarious doc follows the work of State Prosecutor Vera Ngassa and Court President Beatrice Ntuba as they help women fight often-difficult cases of abuse, despite pressures from family and their community to remain silent. Six-year-old Manka is covered in scars and has run away from an abusive aunt, Amina is seeking a divorce to put an end to brutal beatings by her husband, the pre-teen Sonita has daringly accused her neighbor of rape.

  
   I felt extremely sad with the facts of the abuses by men, women and children are struggling with in Cameroon. At the same time, I felt the universal social change that there are some women in the community who attempts to change and solve the issues surrounding women. But still, it is far away from real gender equal society; the social gender structure remains. In the interview with ARTnews, Linda Nochlin mentioned "I don’t think that the position of women is going to cease to be problematic. That’s utopian. We live in a world where women are oppressed, where in certain countries they can’t initiate court cases, where they have marriage thrust upon them. Even polygamy is coming back, and some forms of oppression are tied to religion. This happens around the world. These issues are not going to go away."

     SHINJUKU BOYS introduces three onnabes who work as hosts at the New Marilyn Club in Tokyo. Onnabes are women who live as men and have girlfriends, although they don't usually identify as lesbians. As the film follows them at home and on the job, all three talk frankly to the camera about their gender-bending lives, revealing their views about women, sex, transvestitism and lesbianism. Alternating with these illuminating interviews are fabulous sequences shot inside the Club, patronized almost exclusively by heterosexual women who have become disappointed with real men. This is a documentary about the complexity of female sexuality in Japan in 1996.

<Work Cited>
Women Make Movies - Kim Longinotto
Divorce Iranian Style - Yamagata Film Festival
Women Make Movies - "Sisters in Law"
Women Make Movies - Shinjuku Boys
http://bitchmagazine.org/article/veiled-threat
http://www.artnews.com/2007/02/01/where-the-great-women-artists-are-now/