Shooting the Mafia

Sicilian photojournalist Letizia Battaglia began a long battle against the ruthless Cosa Nostra when she first photographed the sinister scene of a brutal murder. Documenting the barbaric rule of the Italian Mafia, she was an unwavering witness to its crimes. Her art and courage helped end the horrific and bloody reign of the Corleonesi clan.

Theatre Girls

In her final piece at film school, Longinotto and her partner take us into the "Theatre Girls Club" in Soho, London–a hostel for elderly and destitute women and the only shelter in London that would take in any woman at any time. The filmmakers lived in the hostel for more than two months, establishing an extraordinary level of trust with their “cast” —from the home’s feisty cook to an elderly resident who was a terminal alcoholic. In what will later be recognized as a signature style, Longinotto films without judgement and finds the humor a...

Pink Saris

Sampat Pal Devi, founder of India’s Gulabi (“Pink”) Gang and fearless defender of the rights of untouchable women, challenges husbands, fathers-in-law and policemen in this immersive study by acclaimed documentarian Kim Longinotto. More than a profile of an everyday heroine, the film captures the courage and sacrifice necessary for social progress.

The Day I Will Never Forget

The practice of female genital mutilation is explored through personal stories of Kenyan women.

Salma

When Salma, a young Muslim girl in a south Indian village, was 13 years old, her family locked her up for 25 years, forbidding her to study and forcing her into marriage. During that time, words were Salma’s salvation. She began covertly composing poems on scraps of paper and, through an intricate system, was able to sneak them out of the house, eventually getting them into the hands of a publisher. Against the odds, Salma became the most famous Tamil poet: the first step to discovering her own freedom and challenging the traditions and code...

Love Is All: 100 Years of Love & Courtship

A magical and moving archive trip through the universal theme of love, from the very first kisses ever caught on film, through the disruption of war to the birth of youth culture, gay liberation and free love, we follow courting couples flirting at tea dances, kissing in the back of the movies, shacking up and fighting for the right to love.

Dream Girls

This film is about Japanese women, escape, glamour and dreams. The Takarazuka Revue is an enormously successful spectacular where the all-women cast create fantasies of erotic love and sensitive men. It is also a world for young girls desperate to do something different with their lives. In return for living a highly disciplined and reclusive existence, they will be adored and envied by many thousands of Japanese women. They will look, act and behave like young men while having no real men in their lives. Dream Girls explores the nature of s...

Pride of Place

In this first project of Kim Longinotto while she was a student at Englands National School of Television and Film she filmed the daily life in a girls boarding school situated in an old isolated castle in Buckinghamshire. Until she was 17, Longinotto lived in this boarding school, finaly she run away from there. In this dark and expressive black and white documentary, Longinotto exposes the repressive school from the students perspective. It seems to be a kind of miniature state with bizzare rules, idigestibel food and absurd punishments. T...

Underage

Underage lifts the lid on the insular world of a group of wayward Coventry teenagers in the early 1980s. In the run up to the summer holidays, struggling to make sense of their lives, the teens take solace in glue sniffing, drinking excessively, getting arrested or head-banging to Motorhead