A Women Make Movies Release

SALMA

Director Kim Longinotto

Screenwriter Ollie Huddleston

Executive Producers Hamish Mykura, Anna Miralis

Editor Ollie Huddleston

Composer Samuel Sim

Sound Recordist Sara Lima

Producer, Cinematographer Kim Longinotto

Interpreter, Associate Producer Samyuktha PC

Contact for Women Make Movies: Kristen Fitzpatrick / [email protected] / 212‐925‐0606

Press Contact for Sundance Film Festival: Kathleen McInnis / k.mcinnis@see‐throughfilms.com / 310‐733‐9805

SALMA

Synopsis

Internationally‐acclaimed filmmaker Kim Longinotto (ROUGH AUNTIES, World Cinema Jury Prize in Documentary, Sundance 2009) returns to Sundance 2013 with the World Premiere of her new documentary. It’s the remarkable story of a woman who defies her village to become the legendary activist, politician and poet SALMA.

When Salma reached puberty, her parents locked her away from the world. She spent nine years trapped in one small room. Millions of young girls endure the same sort of fate, but Salma refused to let the long years of imprisonment break her spirit. Using hoarded scrap paper, she managed to smuggle out poems that expressed her hidden anger and pain. The poems scandalized her community but inspired readers all over South . Twenty‐five years later, Salma’s brave defiance is a rare beacon of hope.

Like an unfolding detective story, this moving, passionate film charts the transformation of a frightened, isolated young girl into an unlikely hero.

Tamil with English subtitles, 2013, 90 minutes, color, United Kingdom/India SALMA Kim Longinotto, Director / Brief Bio

One of the foremost documentary filmmakers working today, Kim Longinotto is renowned for filming women’s stories.

Longinotto made her first film, PRIDE OF PLACE, a critical look at her all‐girls' boarding school, while she studied at England's National Film School. THEATRE GIRLS, shot in a hostel for homeless women, followed.

Longinotto's films have tackled a wide range of subjects, from an array of surprising and formidable Japanese women to a divorce court in Iran. She won a Peabody Award and the Cannes Film Festival's prestigious Prix Art et Essai for SISTERS IN LAW, set in Kumba, Cameroon; and a Special Jury Prize at the International Documentary Film Festival, Amsterdam, for HOLD ME TIGHT, LET ME GO which was set in a school for disturbed children IN OXFORSHIRE.

Longinotto’s two most recent films are ROUGH AUNTIES (Sundance 2009 World Cinema Jury Prize in Documentary) and PINK SARIS (Sheffield Doc Fest Special Jury Prize). Her new film, SALMA (2013), will World Premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.

SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY 2013 SALMA 2010 PINK SARIS 2009 ROUGH AUNTIES 2007 HOLD ME TIGHT, LET ME GO 2005 SISTERS IN LAW 2002 THE DAY I WILL NEVER FORGET 2001 RUNAWAY 2000 GAEA GIRLS 1998 DIVORCE IRANIAN STYLE 1995 SHINJUKU BOYS 1993 DREAM GIRLS 1992 THE GOOD WIFE OF TOKYO 1990 HIDDEN FACES 1989 EAT THE KIMONO 1978 THEATRE GIRLS 1976 PRIDE OF PLACE

Kim Longinotto, Director selected quotes on the making of the film, SALMA

Q How did you first find out about Salma?

A 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.

Q So what did you do then?

A I wrote to Salma. I emailed her. I said, "I've heard your story from Urvashi, I think it would be really good if we could make a film together about your life." I got an email back almost immediately. "When do you want to come?" She sounded so open and warm.

Q So after Salma said "Yes, I'll do it" and Urvashi said "That'll be great", did you talk to Channel 4?

A Yes, that was the next thing. I went to Hamish Mykura at Channel 4. And the process took ages. His new assistant didn't pass on any of my emails. And then he was in the middle of leaving so he had lots of other things to do. We'd met and he'd said "Ok, let's do the film" and then I didn't hear anything from him for weeks and weeks. I didn't want to hassle him. I thought he'd changed his mind about it. I'd lie awake wondering what I should do. I sent so may emails. In the end I called him & he sounded surprised. He said "I did mean it, I didn't get your emails." And I think it was just the day before he left the Channel that he was able to start off the commission and get it into the system. So I was really lucky. I got it all going just in time. And then, because it had taken so long to get it all sorted out, by the time I turned up, Salma didn't have the job any more. I haven't made a film before where nothing happens, where there isn't a central drama in the film. I'd met her translator, Lakshsmi Holstrom, in London just before leaving. She told me about Salma losing the job, and she said that it would be hard to make a film as Salma was just living alone in . The political party which had given her the job was now out of power

Q Did you plan out with Salma what the shape of the film was going to be?

A No I realised very quickly that it was going to have to be a completely different kind of film than I usually make. It was going to be a film about memories and dreams. A film about what Salma was thinking, rather than what she was doing. It would have to be a subtle layered film. There were no battles and set‐backs to film. No confrontations—only Salma, coming to terms with her past, and letting the audience right in to her world. The drama of the film wasn't there to film: it was there to be uncovered.

Q I remember you often say to me that when you get to a new place and everyone is rushing about doing their own thing and you think "How am I going to find a story in the middle of this, so much is going on?" How did you figure out what the story was going to be?

A I had to figure out how to tell a very personal, internal story, which had all happened in the past and make it come to life. I knew I couldn't do it the normal way. We were going to have to film interviews. There was no way round it.

We would turn up at her flat when she wanted and sit around, maybe film a bit in the kitchen, her chatting to her sister. Little, everyday things…sweeping up…bits and pieces. Not much. Then after about a week, Salma decided to tell us things.

But, like this, you have to trust the translator and work very closely. You have to keep talking to each other about things you want to film, things to look out for. So Samyuktha (the translator) had already told Salma that we needed to cover the important phases of her life. That is: reaching puberty, being locked up, getting married, smuggling the poems out, the books being published, getting elected, and leaving home. Salma knew this too. She was making the film with us. She knew what she wanted to say. She knew what was crucial. We were working as a team of 4. She wanted the story told as much as we wanted to tell it. It wasn't like we'd ask her to tell us something. She would decide when to talk and we would film it. She was the protagonist. It was a real collaboration.

Q So what's the challenge of doing that sort of film?

A I always thought that the action, observational films are harder because you have to be so alert & capture events as they happen. But they're just challenging in different ways. 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.

Q Do you mean how someone appears in the frame of the film?

A No, I mean like with what Ollie (Ollie Huddeston, Screenwriter/Editor) did when Salma is talking about her childhood. She starts telling us about how frightened her mother always was; how her father would always shout at her –this as she's cooking with her mum. Then we cut to her father. He looks straight at us for a while and then he says "She's too clever. She condemns us". It's beautifully edited and Ollie had to have shots with the right atmosphere to work with to reconstruct those thoughts and memories. Hopefully it seems very immediate and raw in the film. Not like the usual voice‐over. Then Salma asks her Mum why she gave her away at birth and Mum answers us, not Salma. As if it's safer and less distressing to talk to us about it, than to say it to Salma. Salma's obviously never asked her that before. It's odd. Everyone is breaking all the rules.

Q So you're thinking this is going to be quieter, more reflective than other films you've made and that this is ok.

A Yes, exactly, I wanted the film to be closer to a novel. Ollie said a detective story. Where the story is unraveled and keeps surprising us. You're going deeper into people's motives, their fears. 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".

Wedding ceremony

The evening breeze blows towards the bride As she takes her leave on her wedding day Her elder sister pushes her face inside the purdah And instructs her on making love Surrounded by the scent of flowers She rifles in haste through pages of heavy books she herself had not read, To tell her little sister…. which days are best for sex When she's most likely to conceive, What things are forbidden She tells her about cleaning after sex That entire night The new bride disentangles her sister’s advice And lays it out carefully on the marriage bed. ‐‐Salma

Salma, Poet/ Author/ Politician

Selected quotes taken from Dec 2006 interview in PoetryInternationalWeb entitled: The Universe in the Closet: Tamil poet Salma on the point at which a private crisis becomes the collective biography of womanhood

NKR: The subtle feelings, perspectives and interiority of a young woman in a domestic setting have formed the underlying theme of all your poetry. On that basis, you could be termed as a pioneer in the contemporary tradition of Tamil poetry. Could you say something about how the aspiration, goals and language for your poetry came to exist and grow in you?

S: As I was physically confined to the house from the age of thirteen, with little or no opportunity for contact with the outside world, it was my experience of reading books that gave me the urge to write. Protracted periods of loneliness and the related emotional crises determined the language and content of my poetry. Feelings that could not be shared with anyone created a language of intensity.

In the small village where I come from, girls’ education was allowed only until they attained puberty. This was a strict, though unwritten, code followed by the entire community.

I was twelve years old at that time, studying in the ninth standard, at a stage when my elementary education would be over in just a couple of months. As it was a Saturday, it was a day off in our school. The four of us – three girls from my class and I – were studying in our favourite library. A matinee show was on at a movie theatre nearby. Getting permission at home to watch a movie was a rare event. And in our village theatre, matinee shows were rare. (As girls, we could not go out of the house in the evenings.) In our eagerness, we decided to go to the matinee show without informing our families. Whilst they were under the impression that we were studying at the library, we proceeded to the theatre. We did not even know the title of the film being screened that day. Only when we went inside did we find out that it was a film with an “A” certificate (Adults Only) [Note: a genre of soft‐porn films popular throughout , especially in the rural areas] and that there were no women in the whole theatre apart from the four of us. We could not leave because the doors were locked; so we buried our faces in our laps the whole time to avoid recognition and returned home after the show. It turned out that my brother was among the audience inside the theatre. As the news of our misdemeanour reached home before we did, we received a sound thrashing. From the very next day, we were forbidden from going to school. (My brother went to school as usual; only I was punished.)

From that day, right up to my wedding day, I had to spend nearly nine years confined to my house, never crossing its threshold and not meeting anyone outside my immediate family, especially men about whom the rules were very strict. I experienced that period of my life as one of intense loneliness. To describe in words the sadness of spending the most important and joyful season of one’s life entirely alone is an extraordinary thing. The language of my poetry formed and developed in a situation where I had no access to even ordinary friendship where I could share my feelings, dreams and desires.

NKR: Personal experiences delineated in your poems – especially, the narrow boundaries decreed by domestic arrangements, loneliness, pain and sorrow embedded in relationships, oppression of (male) authority – could have been that of many other women in a similar condition. Does this affect your writing of poems in any way? If yes, could you describe how, exactly?

S: Rather than characterizing the experiences expressed in my poems as personal, I would say that my poems reflect what I sensed of the feelings and experiences of other women who exist in similar life‐situations. I gave a resonance to those feelings in my poems. Neither my pain nor my feelings are solely that of an individual; they belong to all such women.

NKR: In your poems, the relation between the body and emotion is expressed and explored quite naturally. Where did you get the urge to explore this ‘natural’ facet of life, which was suppressed for a long time in the Tamil world of letters? Was it due to familiarity with role models in western or Tamil literary worlds? Like‐minded friends? Loneliness? Political awareness made possible by feminist thought?

S: There were few opportunities in my younger days to encounter western ideas or to make friends in the outside world. A woman’s subjective feelings are structured in relation to her body. In fact, her feelings are structured from her body itself. It is the body which determines her feelings. I was able to reflect on this relation between body and emotion in a woman from my own experience of life.

If not today, then tomorrow If not tomorrow, then another day That's how life has always seemed Since the dawning of memory ‐‐Salma

CREDITS

THANKS TO

Urvashi Butalia Rachel Henshaw Marc Hofferlin Lakshmi Holstom Govindaswamy Shenny Itala Anupama Chanrasekhar

Mrs Kundu Balan Nair Aruna Rajkumar Irudhayaraj Sathtarcy Premkumar Sehaskin Albert Suresh Doss Thirupatthaih

DRIVER

Ziduddin

ASSISTANT EDITORS

Ben Macgregor Mike Wain Maeva Belajew

MUSICIANS

John Mills Patrick Savage Nick Holland Bozidar Vukotic Lydia Lowndes-Northcott

MUSIC

Samuel Sim

GRAPHICS Andy Dark

PRODUCTION ACCOUNTANT

Roger Barcant

ONLINE EDITOR

Afzal Ali

DUBBING MIXER

Steve Cookman

COLOURIST

Andrew Daniels

TRANSLATION UK

Hari Rajaledchumy

SOUND RECORDIST

Sara Lima

ASSOCIATE PRODUCER / INTERPRETER

Samyuktha PC

FILM EDITOR

Ollie Huddleston

DIRECTOR

Kim Longinotto

A Vixen Films Production for Channel 4

A WOMEN MAKE MOVIES RELEASE