Africa Rising
The Grassroots Movement to End Female Genital Mutilation
A film by Paula Heredia, Produced by Equality Now

Every day, 6,000 girls from the Horn of Africa to sub-Saharan nations are subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM). With fierce determination and deep love for their communities, brave African activists are leading a formidable, fearless grassroots movement to end 5,000 years of FGM. An insightful look at the frontlines of a quiet revolution taking the continent by storm, this extraordinarily powerful film is one of the first to focus on African solutions to FGM. More

After the Rape
The Mukhtar Mai Story
A film by Catherine Ulmer

In 2002, Mukhtar Mai, a rural Pakistani woman from a remote part of the Punjab, was gang-raped by order of her tribal council as punishment for her younger brother’s alleged relationship with a woman from another clan. Instead of committing suicide or living in shame, Mukhtar spoke out, fighting for justice in the Pakistani courts—making world headlines. Further defying custom, she started two schools for girls in her village and a crisis center for abused women. Mukhtar, who had never learned to read but knew the Koran by heart, realized that only a change in mentality could break brutal, archaic traditions and social codes. Her story, included in the bestseller “Half the Sky” by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, and the subject of Mukhtar’s own memoir, “In the Name of Honor”, has inspired women across the globe. More

Everyone Their Grain of Sand
A film by Beth Bird

This award-winning documentary reveals the struggles of the citizens of Maclovio Rojas in Tijuana, Mexico as they battle the state government’s attempts to evict them from their homes to make way for multi-national corporations seeking cheap land and labor. Filmmaker Beth Bird followed the fiercely determined residents for three years as they persistently petitioned the state for basic services like running water, electricity and pay for their teachers, only to be met with bureaucratic stonewalling. Eventually, several community leaders are targeted for persecution, and one is arrested while others are forced into hiding. More

	Los Angeles Film Festival, Jury Award Best Doc
	San Diego Int'l FF, San Diego Feature Film Award

Finding Dawn
A film by Christine Welsh

FINDING DAWN puts a human face on a tragedy that has received precious little attention – and one which is surprisingly similar to the situation in Ciudad Juarez, on the other side of the U.S. border. Dawn Crey, Ramona Wilson and Daleen Kay Bosse are just three of the estimated 500 Aboriginal women who have gone missing or been murdered in Canada over the past 30 years. Acclaimed Métis filmmaker Christine Welsh embarks on an epic journey to shed light on these murders and disappearances that remain unresolved to this day. She begins at Vancouver’s skid row where more than 60 poor women disappeared and travels to the “Highway of Tears” in northern British Columbia where more than two dozen women (all but one Native) have vanished. More

Amnesty Int’l FF Vancouver, Gold Audience Award

God Sleeps in Rwanda
A film by Kimberlee Acquaro and Stacy Sherman, Narrated by Rosario Dawson

Uncovering amazing stories of hope in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, Academy Award-Nominee GOD SLEEPS IN RWANDA captures the spirit of five courageous women as they rebuild their lives, redefine women’s roles in Rwandan society and bring hope to a wounded nation. More

	Emmy Award for Best Documentary
	Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Short

The Greatest Silence: Rape in the Congo
A film by Lisa F. Jackson

Winner of the Sundance Special Jury Prize in Documentary and the inspiration for a 2008 U.N. Resolution classifying rape as a weapon of war, this extraordinary film, shot in the war zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), shatters the silence that surrounds the use of sexual violence as a weapon of conflict. Many tens of thousands of women and girls have been systematically kidnapped, raped, mutilated and tortured by soldiers from both foreign militias and the Congolese army. A survivor of gang rape herself, Emmy Award®-winning filmmaker Lisa F. Jackson travels through the DRC to understand what is happening and why. More

	Sundance Film Festival, Special Jury Prize: Documentary
	Gracie Award, Outstanding Documentary - Long Format

Highway Courtesans
A film by Mystelle Brabbee

This provocative coming-of-age film chronicles the story of a bold young woman born into the Bachara community in Central India – the last hold-out of a tradition that started with India’s ancient palace courtesans and now survives with the sanctioned prostitution of every Bachara family’s oldest girl. Guddi, Shana and their neighbor Sungita serve a daily stream of roadside truckers to support their families. Their work as prostitutes forms the core of the local economy, but their contemporary ideas about freedom of choice, gender and self-determination slowly intrude on the Bachara way of life. More

	Chicago Int'l FF, President's Jury Award
	Galway Film Fleadh, Best Feature Documentary

The Man Who Stole My Mother's Face
A film by Cathy Henkel, Produced by Jeff Canin & Cathy Henkel

Sexual assault remains the most hidden and the fastest growing crime in the world, and in South Africa the statistics are staggering. Two days before Christmas in 1988, Cathy Henkel’s 59 year-old mother Laura was sexually assaulted and brutally bashed in her home in Johannesburg, South Africa by a local white teenager. Although Laura identified her attacker from a school photograph, the man was never charged, and remained free. For fourteen years, unable to recover, Laura Henkel retreated from her family and rejected contact with the outside world. More

Mrs. Goundo's Daughter
A film by Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater

Mrs. Goundo is fighting to remain in the United States. But it’s not just because of the ethnic conflict and drought that has plagued her native Mali. Threatened with deportation, her two-year-old daughter could be forced to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM), like 85 percent of women and girls in Mali. Using rarely cited grounds for political asylum, Goundo must convince an immigration judge that her daughter is in danger. More

Winner, Best Social Documentary, 2011 Addis International Film Festival

The Peacekeepers and the Women
A film by Karin Jurschick

Winner of the Arte-Documentary Award for Best German Documentary, this chilling investigation examines the booming sex-trafficking industry in Bosnia and Kosovo, and boldly explores the disturbing role of the UN peacekeeping forces and the local military in perpetuating this tragic situation. More

The Price of Sex
A film by Mimi Chakarova

An unprecedented and compelling inquiry, THE PRICE OF SEX sheds light on the underground criminal network of human trafficking and experiences of trafficked Eastern European women forced into prostitution abroad. Photojournalist Mimi Chakarova’s feature documentary caps years of painstaking, on-the-ground reporting that aired on Frontline (PBS) and 60 Minutes (CBS) and earned her an Emmy nomination, Magnum photo agency’s Inge Morath Award, and a Webby for Internet excellence. More

	Winner of the 2011 Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting
	Nomination, 2012 American Library Association Notable Videos for Adults

Rough Aunties
A film by Kim Longinotto

Fearless, feisty and resolute, the “Rough Aunties” are a remarkable group of women unwavering in their stand to protect and care for the abused, neglected and forgotten children of Durban, South Africa. This documentary by internationally acclaimed director Kim Longinotto (SISTERS IN LAW, DIVORCE IRANIAN STYLE) follows the outspoken, multiracial cadre of Thuli, Mildred, Sdudla, Eureka and Jackie, as they wage a daily battle against systemic apathy, corruption, and greed to help the most vulnerable and disenfranchised of their communities. More

	Sundance Film Festival, World Cinema Jury Prize in Documentary
	Hot Docs, Top Ten Audience Favourite

The Sari Soldiers
A film by Julie Bridgham

Filmed over three years during the most historic and pivotal time in Nepal’s modern history, The Sari Soldiers is an extraordinary story of six women’s courageous efforts to shape Nepal’s future in the midst of an escalating civil war against Maoist insurgents, and the King’s crackdown on civil liberties.
More

	Human Rights Watch Film Festival, NY, Nestor Almendros Prize
	WATCH DOCS Human Rights in Film Int’l Film Festival, Feature Length Competition Special Mention

Señorita Extraviada, Missing Young Woman
A film by Lourdes Portillo

SENORITA EXTRAVIADA, MISSING YOUNG WOMAN tells the haunting story of the more than 350 kidnapped, raped and murdered young women of Juárez, Mexico. Visually poetic, yet unflinching in its gaze, this compelling investigation unravels the layers of complicity that have allowed for the brutal murders of women living along the Mexico-U.S. border. In the midst of Juárez’s international mystique and high profile job market, there exists a murky history of grossly underreported human rights abuses and violence against women. The climate of violence and impunity continues to grow, and the murders of women continue to this day. More

	Sundance Film Festival - Special Jury Prize
	Academy of C.A.S.-Mx.- Ariel, Best Mexican Doc.

Sentenced to Marriage
A film by Anat Zuria, Produced by Amit Breuer

Nominated for a Silver Wolf at IDFA, this shocking documentary exposes the Kafkaesque process of divorce for women in Israel where secular law does not exist, and divorce is dealt with according to archaic and fundamentalist orthodox Jewish law. Filmmaker Anat Zuria, maker of the award-winning Purity, gained rare access to the rabbinical courts to follow two women caught in the demoralizing legal labyrinth. Though husbands can live with other women and even withhold child support, wives are forbidden contact with other men. In some cases, these very modern, independent and well-educated women are forced to buy a divorce from their husbands for huge sums. As a result, thousands of Jewish women have lived in limbo indefinitely, both in Israel and in other communities around the world. More

Best Doc, Spotlight on Israel, Hot Docs FF

Soraida, Woman of Palestine
A film by Tahani Rached

Meeting Soraida will overturn any preconceived notions you may have about Palestine. In her neighborhood in Ramallah, the women do not all wear veils, the men do not rattle off empty political slogans, the young people do not strap bombs to their belts, and the children play together like children everywhere. In this city under siege and a strict curfew, she fights her own battle: despite the military occupation, violence and oppression, she is determined not to lose her humanity. In chronicling daily injustices and routine indignities– will there be enough water for the plants? Will school be open today? – this powerful documentary paints a subtly devastating portrait of life under occupation. Soraida wonders how to reconcile the multiple facets of her identity – as a woman, a mother and a committed Palestinian. As a patriot, she is tempted to join the struggle, while as a mother, she is responsible for her two children and must keep her distance. More

Tiger Spirit
A film by Min Sook Lee

Korea is a divided nation. Millions of families were split apart in the 1950s when war broke out between the Soviet-occupied North and the American-controlled South. For more than a generation, families have not been able to visit, speak to, or even write one another. Tragically, the last survivors to remember a unified Korea are dying without ever having seen their grandchildren–nobody knew their good-byes would be forever. More

Gemini Award, Donald Brittain Award for Best Social/ Political Documentary Program

To See If I'm Smiling (Lir’ot Im Ani Mehayechet)
A film by Tamar Yarom

Israel is the only country in the world where 18-year-old girls are drafted for compulsory military service. In this award-winning documentary, the frank testimonials of six female Israeli soldiers stationed in Gaza and the West Bank pack a powerful emotional punch. The young women revisit their tours of duty in the occupied territories with surprising honesty and strip bare stereotypes of gender differences in the military. The former soldiers share shocking moments of negligence, flippancy, immaturity and power-tripping as they describe atrocities they witnessed and participated in. More

	Int’l Doc FF Amsterdam (IDFA), Silver Wolf Award
	Int’l Doc FF, Amsterdam (IDFA), Audience Award

Women in Struggle
A film by Buthina Canaan Khoury

WOMEN IN STRUGGLE presents rare testimony from four female Palestinian ex-detainees who disclose their experiences during their years of imprisonment in Israeli jails and the effect it has had on their present lives and future outlooks. Once content in their lives as sisters, wives and mothers, each of the women became active members for the national fight for Palestinian independence, but their “crimes” differed markedly–one woman was detained in a peaceful protest while another was arrested for her participation in a bombing. More

	AMWA Excellence in Media Award
	Ismaelia Film Fest, Hussam Ali Award& Jury Mention