PINK SARIS By Kim Longinotto
KIM LONGINOTTO - DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER
Kim Longinotto is an observational filmmaker. Observational cinema, also known as direct cinema, free cinema or cinema verite, usually excludes certain documentary techniques such as advanced planning, scripting, staging, narration, lighting, reenactment and interviewing. Longinotto’s unobtrusiveness, which is an important part of observational documentary, gives the women on camera a certain voice and presence that may not have emerged with another documentary genre. She has received a number of awards for her films over the years, including a BAFTA for her documentary Pink Saris and the 2015 Sundance Film Festival's World Cinema Award for Documentary and 2015 VOICE OF A WOMAN AWARD for Documentary Film. THE VOICE OF A WOMAN FILM FESTIVAL presented a retrospective on Kim Longinotto's works and was interviewed by Guardian Features Editor, Kira Cochrane as part of Festival's opening ceremony in London on Friday 2nd October, 2015.
SYNOPSIS
“A girl’s life is cruel...A woman’s life is very cruel,” notes Sampat Pal, the complex protagonist at the center of PINK SARIS, internationally acclaimed director Kim Longinotto’s latest foray into the lives of extraordinary women. Sampat should know – like many others she was married as a young girl into a family which made her work hard and beat her often. But unusually, she fought back, leaving her in-laws and eventually becoming famous as a champion for beleaguered women throughout Uttar Pradesh, many of whom find their way to her doorstep to form the Gulabi Gang, Northern India’s women vigilantes in pink.
