Tina Gharavi
Encyclopedia
Tina Gharavi is an Iranian/American filmmaker and screenwriter. Gharavi, is known for making innovative films about outsiders, outcasts and marginalised people in extraordinary situations. Best known for her work on diversity, her subjects include migration, terrorism-related discrimination, Muslim-identity, and issues related to representation. Gharavi's award-winning films have been shown in film festivals internationally, broadcast on television worldwide on the BBC
, Channel 4
(UK), ITV
, Showtime, Educational Broadcasting System
South Korea, and in the contemporary art world, including multiple screenings at the ICA
in London, the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
(UK) and the Sundance Film Festival
.
She has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts
Fellowship at Hallwalls
, Buffalo, NY and in 2003, a UK Arts Council Decibel Spotlight Award. Her works are housed in the permanent collections of MIT, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, British Film Institute
, Harvard University Library
, Tyne & Wear Archives, Manchester Art Gallery
, and the Donnell Library NY amongst many others.
Gharavi is currently on the teaching staff in Digital Media at the University of Newcastle and is frequently a guest lecturer internationally. She lives and works in South Shields
and Newcastle upon Tyne
.
Sundance programmer Shari Frilot, commenting on Gharavi’s Closer (2000):
and The London Evening Standard commenting about Mother/Country:
Her recent project has been endorsed by Sir Ben Kingsley:
Official selection, Sundance Film Festival. In distribution with Women Make Movies (New York), screened on Showtime/Sundance Channel in the US.
Grand Prize: i/Film Planetout Short Movie Award (Los Angeles, OutFEST)
Award: One World Film Festival, The Czech Radio Award
Jury statement announced by Jiří Hubička:
In 2000 Tina setup and established the Kooch Cinema Group i-Kooch website, a community media training project, which is made up of asylum seekers and refugee participants from the Middle East based in the North of England.
She started this project after returning to Iran to make a Channel Four commissioned documentary, Mother/Country, about revisiting her mothers house 23 years after leaving.
Grand Prize: Tongues on Fire, Asian Women’s’ Film Festival, ICA London March 2005
Along with several other newspapers, TimeOut selected Mother/Country as ‘Pick of the Week’ and called it ‘genuinely moving.’
In 2001 she was awarded a prestigious US National Endowment for the Arts
residency at Hallwalls
, Buffalo, NY where she completed A Town Like Lackawanna, a film about a Muslim/European immigrant community in America post-9/11.
.
Through her company, Bridge + Tunnel Productions, Gharavi produced a documentary about the first settled Muslim community in the UK- the Yemeni Community in South Shields
and the day Muhammad Ali
got married in the local mosque The King of South Shields.
came to Tyneside in 1977. Ali and his new wife Veronica, attended the South Shields Mosque with their baby daughter Hana, and had their wedding blessed by the local Imam. Using archive news and Super-8 footage, much of it never seen before, the film looks at the effect that the event had on the young Yemeni-British men who attended the blessing.
The Yemeni community in South Shields is one of the oldest Muslim communities in the UK, and this film examines the emerging Arab/British identity, during a period when the young men involved were recognising the duality of their culture. The visit of Muhammed Ali, as probably the highest profile Muslim in the world, has increased significance today as the men reflect on the events of the past. Official Film Site
Gharavi has recently been awarded a major UK Heritage Lottery Fund award for an exhibition (documentary, oral history and community photographic project) about multi-culturalism and the Yemeni-Muslim community (who have lived in the North East since 1890), Last of the Dictionary Men. This is a major touring exhibition that launched at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
in 2008 and subsequently has traveled internationally: Yemen Tour= San'aa January 2009, Ta'izz March 2009 and Aden June 2009.
Her recent commission from Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens, Asylum Carwash, is an 8-hour installation documentary film project about the existence of modern day slavery and the reality of black market economics for failed asylum seekers in Europe. Touring the UK in 2007-8, the project was launched by acclaimed Malawian poet and former political prisoner, Jack Mapanje
, and was commemorated in poem entitled: Upon Opening Tina’s ‘Asylum Carwash’ Poem
Gharavi recently was winner of the TCM Classic Movie Award for Perfect to Begin which she produced with Richard Lawson.
Gharavi has also recently completed a feature screenplay, Ali in Wonderland, about teenage Iranian refugees in the North East (naturally, a comedy), developed through improvisation with the Kooch group and more recently developed with young people as part of the Wiki: Wonderland project. The feature film went into production in June 2009 and was supported by patron Sir Ben Kingsley. The film is currently in post-production.
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
, Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
(UK), ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
, Showtime, Educational Broadcasting System
Educational Broadcasting System
Educational Broadcasting System or EBS is the only educational television and radio network covering South Korean territory. Established as KBS 3TV in the 1980's, and became an independent corporation in 2000...
South Korea, and in the contemporary art world, including multiple screenings at the ICA
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...
in London, the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art is an international centre for contemporary art located on the south bank of the River Tyne alongside the Gateshead Millennium Bridge in Gateshead, North East England, United Kingdom...
(UK) and the Sundance Film Festival
Sundance Film Festival
The Sundance Film Festival is a film festival that takes place annually in Utah, in the United States. It is the largest independent cinema festival in the United States. Held in January in Park City, Salt Lake City, and Ogden, as well as at the Sundance Resort, the festival is a showcase for new...
.
She has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
Fellowship at Hallwalls
Hallwalls
Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center is a non-profit organization in Buffalo, N.Y. that showcases artists of diverse backgrounds in film, video, literature, music, performance, media and visual arts. Since its inception, Hallwalls has been dedicated to promoting artists from multiple backgrounds and...
, Buffalo, NY and in 2003, a UK Arts Council Decibel Spotlight Award. Her works are housed in the permanent collections of MIT, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, British Film Institute
British Film Institute
The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...
, Harvard University Library
Harvard University Library
The Harvard University Library system comprises about 90 libraries, with more than 16 million volumes. It is the oldest library system in the United States, the largest academic and the largest private library system in the world...
, Tyne & Wear Archives, Manchester Art Gallery
Manchester Art Gallery
Manchester Art Gallery is a publicly-owned art gallery in Manchester, England. It was formerly known as Manchester City Art Gallery.The gallery was opened in 1824 and today occupies three buildings, the oldest of which - designed by Sir Charles Barry - is Grade I listed and was originally home to...
, and the Donnell Library NY amongst many others.
Gharavi is currently on the teaching staff in Digital Media at the University of Newcastle and is frequently a guest lecturer internationally. She lives and works in South Shields
South Shields
South Shields is a coastal town in Tyne and Wear, England, located at the mouth of the River Tyne to Tyne Dock, and about downstream from Newcastle upon Tyne...
and Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
.
Expanding the boundaries of documentary
Gharavi’s work explores the veracity of the image and combines intriguing improvisational and dramatic work as a way of developing new storytelling languages. Her body of work often transcends form and encompasses a variety of outputs; each time seeking the right methodology for the issue contemplated.Sundance programmer Shari Frilot, commenting on Gharavi’s Closer (2000):
and The London Evening Standard commenting about Mother/Country:
Her recent project has been endorsed by Sir Ben Kingsley:
Closer (2000)
This stunningly shot experimental documentary has at its heart a poignant character study of a 17 year-old lesbian living in Newcastle, England. Closer, an official selection at Sundance Film Festival 2001, innovatively explores the process of documentary filmmaking and boldly challenges traditional forms of storytelling. Fiction and documentary collide in this gripping film as ‘scenes’ from the main subject's life are re-enacted for the camera. Produced without a script and in close collaboration with the subject, Annelise Rodger, the filmmaker presents a hypnotising array of montages and fictive sequences to introduce the day-to-day happenings of this extraordinary person. From the streets of Newcastle - where we find Annelise speaking frankly to the camera about her experiences as a young lesbian - to the emotionally charged re-enactment of her coming out to her mother, this inventive film provides a rare auto-portrait. What emerges is a remarkable encounter with a young woman, and a story that has broader implications about being young, being at the cusp of adulthood, and finding one's identity; about how documentaries reveal, provoke and conceal.Official selection, Sundance Film Festival. In distribution with Women Make Movies (New York), screened on Showtime/Sundance Channel in the US.
Grand Prize: i/Film Planetout Short Movie Award (Los Angeles, OutFEST)
Award: One World Film Festival, The Czech Radio Award
Jury statement announced by Jiří Hubička:
In 2000 Tina setup and established the Kooch Cinema Group i-Kooch website, a community media training project, which is made up of asylum seekers and refugee participants from the Middle East based in the North of England.
She started this project after returning to Iran to make a Channel Four commissioned documentary, Mother/Country, about revisiting her mothers house 23 years after leaving.
Mother/Country (2001)
Channel Four commissioned TV documentary. Over 20 years ago, at the age of six, director Tina Gharavi left Iran and her mother, to live with her father in the West. She has not seen mother or homeland since. This intensely personal film follows her as she returns to Iran to confront her past and understand why her mother sent her away. As well as filming her own experiences, Tina employs actors to play out the roles of her and her mother as they look on, in order to facilitate communication between the pair. But as the visit draws to a close, her mother remains elusive about why she sent her away, while Tina has a bombshell of her own to drop.Grand Prize: Tongues on Fire, Asian Women’s’ Film Festival, ICA London March 2005
Along with several other newspapers, TimeOut selected Mother/Country as ‘Pick of the Week’ and called it ‘genuinely moving.’
In 2001 she was awarded a prestigious US National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
residency at Hallwalls
Hallwalls
Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center is a non-profit organization in Buffalo, N.Y. that showcases artists of diverse backgrounds in film, video, literature, music, performance, media and visual arts. Since its inception, Hallwalls has been dedicated to promoting artists from multiple backgrounds and...
, Buffalo, NY where she completed A Town Like Lackawanna, a film about a Muslim/European immigrant community in America post-9/11.
A Town Like Lackawanna (2002)
A timely observational documentary focusing on the attitudes of two distinct groups of men- American-Muslims from the Yemeni community and those from white European backgrounds- who once worked in the former steel mining industry in Lackawanna, NY. The film records these two groups of men talking about the changes in their communities and the shift in attitudes since 9/11 following the arrest and trial of the Lackawanna 6. The film challenges traditional methodology of documentary storytelling and presents a unique anthropology of a particular time and place. Commissioned as part of a prestigious residency program sponsored by the NEANational Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
.
Through her company, Bridge + Tunnel Productions, Gharavi produced a documentary about the first settled Muslim community in the UK- the Yemeni Community in South Shields
South Shields
South Shields is a coastal town in Tyne and Wear, England, located at the mouth of the River Tyne to Tyne Dock, and about downstream from Newcastle upon Tyne...
and the day Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...
got married in the local mosque The King of South Shields.
The King of South Shields (2008)
Documentary looking at the day that Muhammad AliMuhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali is an American former professional boxer, philanthropist and social activist...
came to Tyneside in 1977. Ali and his new wife Veronica, attended the South Shields Mosque with their baby daughter Hana, and had their wedding blessed by the local Imam. Using archive news and Super-8 footage, much of it never seen before, the film looks at the effect that the event had on the young Yemeni-British men who attended the blessing.
The Yemeni community in South Shields is one of the oldest Muslim communities in the UK, and this film examines the emerging Arab/British identity, during a period when the young men involved were recognising the duality of their culture. The visit of Muhammed Ali, as probably the highest profile Muslim in the world, has increased significance today as the men reflect on the events of the past. Official Film Site
Innovative Practice
In 1998 Tina set up the productions company, Bridge + Tunnel Productions. In 2005, she established a separate media education charity, Nomad Cultural Forum, to undertake the charitable and educational work she initiated mainly working with refugees and asylum seekers (the Kooch Cinema Projects). In 2008, the name was changed to Bridge + Tunnel Voices.Gharavi has recently been awarded a major UK Heritage Lottery Fund award for an exhibition (documentary, oral history and community photographic project) about multi-culturalism and the Yemeni-Muslim community (who have lived in the North East since 1890), Last of the Dictionary Men. This is a major touring exhibition that launched at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art
The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art is an international centre for contemporary art located on the south bank of the River Tyne alongside the Gateshead Millennium Bridge in Gateshead, North East England, United Kingdom...
in 2008 and subsequently has traveled internationally: Yemen Tour= San'aa January 2009, Ta'izz March 2009 and Aden June 2009.
Her recent commission from Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens, Asylum Carwash, is an 8-hour installation documentary film project about the existence of modern day slavery and the reality of black market economics for failed asylum seekers in Europe. Touring the UK in 2007-8, the project was launched by acclaimed Malawian poet and former political prisoner, Jack Mapanje
Jack Mapanje
Jack Mapanje is a Malawian writer and poet. He was the former head of English at the University of Malawi, and is currently a senior lecturer in English at Newcastle University.-Works:* Of Chameleons and Gods, 1981...
, and was commemorated in poem entitled: Upon Opening Tina’s ‘Asylum Carwash’ Poem
Gharavi recently was winner of the TCM Classic Movie Award for Perfect to Begin which she produced with Richard Lawson.
Gharavi has also recently completed a feature screenplay, Ali in Wonderland, about teenage Iranian refugees in the North East (naturally, a comedy), developed through improvisation with the Kooch group and more recently developed with young people as part of the Wiki: Wonderland project. The feature film went into production in June 2009 and was supported by patron Sir Ben Kingsley. The film is currently in post-production.
Filmography
| Year | Film | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2011 | I Am Nasrine (formerly, Ali in Wonderland) | Feature Film - [ director, producer, writer] Due for release Fall 2011 |
| 2008 | The King of South Shields | Documentary - [ director, producer, photographer] Nominated - [Opening film Sheffield Documentary Film Festival] |
| 2007 | Last of the Dictionary Men | Documentary - [ director, producer, photographer] Installation & Exhibition - [International touring exhibition, opened at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art] |
| 2007 | Perfect to Begin | Short Fiction- [script editor, producer] Winner - [TCM Classic Shorts Award at the London Film Festival 2007] |
| 2007 | Two Lighthouses | Poetry Film & Documentary- [director, producer] |
| 2007 | Asylum Carwash | Documentary Installation- [ director, producer] Commissioned - [Sunderland Museum & Winter Garden.] |
| 2006 | Bread: Nearest Neighbor: Israel & Palestine | Documentary Installation- [ director, producer] Opened - [Shanghai Zendai Museum of Contemporary Art, China] |
| 2004 | Featherhead | Short Fiction- [ director, producer] Distributed - [Alzheimer's Society] Filmed by Brian Tufano |
| 2002 | A Town Like Lackawanna | Documentary- [ director, producer, photographer] Broadcast - [Buffalo Public Broadcast Channel] |
| 2001 | Mother/Country | Documentary- [ director, producer, photographer] Broadcast - [Channel Four TV, UK & Sundance Channel/Showtime, USA] |
| 2000 | Closer | Documentary- [ director, producer] Broadcast - [Sundance Channel/Showtime, USA, EBS, South Korea] Official Selection- [Sundance Film Festival] Winner [Grand Prize: i/Film Planetout Short Movie Award (Los Angeles, OutFEST)] |
| 1999 | Panino | Short Fiction- [ script editor, producer] Official Selection - [Edinburgh International Film Festival] |
| 1996 | If I Wasn’t a Painter, I Would Have Raised Chickens | Documentary- [director, producer] Funded - Henry Rutgers Foundation |
External links
- IMDB Tina Gharavi at the Internet Movie Database
- Bridge + Tunnel Tina Gharavi at Bridge + Tunnel Productions
- University of Newcastle Tina Gharavi at the University of Newcastle
- The King of South Shields Official film site
- Ali in Wonderland Ali in Wonderland official film site
- Artists Newsletter
- BBC Site
- Conference Paper:Second International Conference on Technology, Knowledge and Society
- The Shields Gazette
- Sunderland Echo
- Netributions Interview on Netributions Website