Hot Docs

Longinotto’s first film in Iran, Divorce Iranian Style, takes us into a divorce court where Longinotto and Ziba Mir-Hosseini spent several weeks deftly documenting the intricacies of marital relations and gender politics in Iranian culture. The film focuses on women in the Imam Khomeini Judicial Complex in Tehran who are trying to divorce their husbands, a highly controversial and difficult endeavour. The filmmakers were allowed unprecedented access and took a vérité approach, letting the activities of the court tell the story. Longinotto, who operated the camera, relied on Farsi-speaking Mir-Hosseini to touch her arm to re-direct her attention to a character or signify the end of a scene. The situations of the women seeking divorce vary, but throughout this exceptional film one thing remains clear: all the women are strong, determined, and outspoken, an image of Iranian women heretofore not seen in the West. - Shannon Abel