Tina Gharavi

Currently in development with the British Film Institute. A biopic of a radical, largely unknown feminist icon.

Currently in development with Film4 and the British Film Institute and with finance/production partners Back-Up (France). Website: The Good Iranian

Film exploring wrongful conviction and prison exoneration. Made for and with charity Resurrection After Exoneration (New Orleans, LA) Winner: Anthem Film Award: Excellence in Filmmaking (2016) Nominated: AHRC Research in Film Award (2016)

Awards/Honours : Nominated for a BAFTA in 2013: Outstanding debut by a British writer, director or producer.[17] Winner (Best Screenplay): Brooklyn Film Festival, 2012.[18] Theatrical release in Spring 2013 Website: iamnasrine.com

I Am Nasrine is a feature screenplay, about teenage Iranian refugees in the North East, developed through improvisation with the Kooch Cinema Group and more recently developed with young people as part of the Wiki: Wonderland project. It went into production in June 2009 and was supported by patron Sir Ben Kingsley. The film had a theatrical release in 2013 in Europe. Was screened in the Houses of Parliament in London to a selection of invited MP's. Nominated for BAFTA in 2013.

Awards/Honours : Nominated - Opening film Sheffield Documentary Film Festival

Documentary looking at the day that Muhammad Ali 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, 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.

Opening film of Sheffield International Documentary Festival in 2008. Website: thekingofsouthshields.co.uk.

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 was a major touring exhibition that launched at the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in 2008 and subsequently traveled internationally, including to Yemen.[4]

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.[6]

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'.

An 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. Commissioned as part of a residency sponsored by the NEA.

Awards/Honours : Grand Prize: Tongues on Fire, Asian Women's' Film Festival, ICA London March 2005.[15]

Channel Four commissioned TV documentary. 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 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, Gharavi employs actors to play out the roles of her and her mother as they look on, in order to facilitate communication between the pair.

TimeOut selected Mother/Country as 'Pick of the Week' and called it "genuinely moving".

Awards/Honours : Official selection, Sundance Film Festival.[13]
Grand Prize: i/Film Planetout Short Movie Award, OutFEST, Los Angeles.[14]

This documentary is a character study of a 17-year-old lesbian living in Newcastle. Closer explores the process of documentary film making and challenges traditional forms of storytelling. combining both fiction and documentary. Produced without a script and in close collaboration with the subject, Annelise Rodger. Selected for Sundance Film Festival and winner of the Plantout/iFilm Grand Prize.