Synopsis
Poignant portrait of well-known Indian Tamil poet Salma. She spent twenty-five years of her life behind closed doors, at first in her elderly home and later in that of her parents-in-law. A fate that is common to many Muslim women around the world. Salma fought back, however, and regained the freedom that had been taken away from her at such a young age. Master documentarian Kim Longinotto of PINK SARIS fame tells yet another extraordinary story of a woman’s courage and resilience.
Festivals & Awards
World Premiere – Sundance Film Festival, 2013
Winner – Best Intl Feature & Best Intl Director Documentary Edge Festival, New Zealand, 2013
Winner – Best Documentary, Indian Film Festival Stuttgart, 2013
Nominated, Prix Europa
Winner – Best Film International Human Rights Films Festival, Tunis,
Grierson Award, Nominated Best Documentary on a Contemporary Theme – International
Winner – Panorama Audience Award, 2nd Place Berlinale, 2013
HotDocs International Documentary Film Festival, Canada, 2013
Director’s Statements
“I was in a seminar at a Film Festival in Delhi and a woman, Urvashi Butalia, told a group of us about Salma. It was such an inspiring and unusual story that I knew immediately that I really wanted to make a film about her. What seemed amazing about the story, and I still can’t quite believe we’ve actually done it, is that it starts by describing the fate of millions of women all over the world and not many women escape it and manage to tell the tale.
It’s a kind of legend – this woman who is locked away in a tiny room for 9 years, then gets married and still isn’t allowed out – who then becomes an activist, a politician, trying to help other women in her community and also a famous poet. It’s an amazing story.
With this one the challenge is to do justice to the story and make it compelling to watch. You have to invent ways of using images. You can’t just have the dialogue.
You have to find the emotion and really take the audience into someone’s life. Take them back there and help them re-live it. You have to think flexibly and follow the strands that people offer you. You have to be open to the feelings that people reveal that they don’t normally express.
The film must embrace the complexities and contradictions. For instance, Salma’s mum was her jailer, her betrayer but she still loves her daughter and wanted to save her. She helped her escape. Salma calls it “The knots and ties of love” – Kim Longinotto
Director’s Bio
Master documentarian Kim Longinotto is a British documentary maker, most famous for making films which highlight the plight of female victims of oppression or discrimination around the globe. Longinotto studied camera and directing at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, England, where she now tutors. After her famous Pink Saris (screened at 2nd Flashpoint HRFF), Salma is her second documentary film set in India. Currently she is shooting for latest feature documentary, The Dreamcatchers which is her first film shot in USA.
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