New York – Women Make Movies (WMM), the distributor of films by women and about women, announces that HBO will air the broadcast premiere of the award-winning PINK SARIS, the new film by internationally acclaimed and Sundance award winning director, Kim Longinotto. The film will air on HBO2 on Wednesday, November 30, at 8 pm EST.
“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. Like Rekha, a fourteen year old Untouchable, who is three months pregnant and homeless – unable to marry her unborn child’s father because of her low caste. Fifteen year old Renu’s husband from an arranged marriage has abandoned her, her father-in-law has been raping her and she’s threatening to throw herself under a train. Both youn g women, frightened and desperate, reach out for their only hope: Sampat Pal and her Gulabi Gang, Northern India’s women vigilantes in pink.
PINK SARIS is an unflinching and often amusing look at these unlikely political activists and their charismatic leader; in extraordinary scenes, we watch Sampat launch herself into the centre of family dramas, witnessed by scores of spectators, convinced her mediation is the best path for these vulnerable girls. Her partner Babuji, who has watched Sampat change over the years, is less certain…
Executive Director Debra Zimmerman said, “PINK SARIS is an important film that brings to light the abuse women undergo still in northern India and how one woman is fighting to make a difference. Women Make Movies is proud to be distributing another incredible documentary from the renowned Kim Longinotto.”
Kim Longinotto, the world-renowned director of PINK SARIS, has won awards at festivals worldwide, including: the World Cinema Jury Prize in Documentary at Sundance for ROUGH AUNTIES which aired on HBO2 in May 2010; a 2008 Peabody Award and two Cannes awards for SISTERS IN LAW; an d an Amnesty International DOEN Award at IDFA and Best Doc UK Spotlight at Hot Docs for THE DAY I WILL NEVER FORGET which premiered at Sundance in 2003 and debuted on CINEMAX that year.The Museum of Modern Art honored her with a film retrospective of her body of work in 2009 and she received Hot Docs’ Outstanding Achievement Award in 2010.
PINK SARIS
A film by Kim Longinotto
UK/India, 2010, 96 minutes,
Color, DVD, Subtitled (Hindi)