Film: In the Name of Your Daughter

"In the Name of Your Daughter " is the winner of the Best Canadian Feature Documentary at NorthWestFest.and winner of the Award in Impact DOCS Awards .

“A Touching Masterpiece!”
The Tanzanian Citizen
“Heartbreaking and heartwarming”
CPH:DOX
“Amazing turnout! The best ever!”
Fabrizio Colombo, Festival Director, ZIFF.

"What I love about this documentary is that it puts the children first. The girls are at the centre of the film, not the parents, not the community. It’s about what the girls think, and that is the film’s power."
-HIBO WARDERE:
Human Rights Activist, Author, and FGM survivor.

About the Film:
Synopsis

Heartbreaking and Heartwarming, In The Name Of Your Daughter is an intimate fly-on-the-wall story about some of the most courageous girls in the world, children like feisty 12-year old Rosie Makore who ran away from her home in Northern Tanzania to save herself from female genital mutilation (FGM) and the child marriage her parents had planned for her.
Terrified of stories of girls bleeding to death during the chillingly named ‘cutting season’during the school holidays in December, these young African girls, some as young as eight, must face the most difficult choice of their young lives: submit to being cut or risk their lives and run away, not knowing if they’ll ever see their families again.
Rhobi Samwelly, one of Africa’s most charismatic women, protects the girls – Christians, Pagans and Muslims – at a Safe House, and travels around the countryside fighting against this thousands-year-old tradition.
Hers is a tough and dangerous job. FGM is illegal in Tanzania, but old customs die hard. Men believe that girls’ clitorises must be cut off to reduce promiscuity, and mutilated girls command twice the bride price in cows as uncut girls. In partnership with the Safe House, Mugumu police officer Sijali Nyambuche and her team start cracking down on FGM. In night-time raids they rescue girls at risk and arrest parents and cutters.
As the year’s cutting season winds down, in dramatic and heart-breaking reconciliation meetings, parents have to decide if they’ll spare their daughters and take them back, and young girls like Rosie must decide if they’ll be safe if they return home. Set in the stunning landscape of East Africa’s Serengeti district, this is ultimately an inspiring and hopeful story of brave young girls standing up for their human rights and fighting for change in their community.

http://www.inthenameofyourdaughterfilm.com/about-the-film.

About Giselle Portenier:
@GisellePortenie
Award-winning filmmaker, journalist, activist. My new hopeful documentary tells the story of the brave girls who risk it all to escape female genital mutilation.

Giselle Portenier is an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and journalist  who has consistently focused on human rights,
especially the human rights of women and children. Her groundbreaking films have received numerous international awards
including two Peabody awards, and have been instrumental in changing minds, changing lives, and changing laws.

She started her career as a reporter and anchor at BCTV News in Vancouver, and worked as foreign editor for ABC News and as an Associate Producer for CBS 60 Minutes in London, England, before joining the BBC in 1986. During her time there, she produced and directed dozens of documentaries, including Murder in Purdah about honour killings in Pakistan; Condemned to Live, about torture and rape during the Rwandangenocide; The Slave Children, about child slavery in West Africa; The Disposables,  about the murder of homeless people, petty thieves, and homosexuals in Colombia; Dying for Sex, about sex trafficking in Thailand, and Let Her Die, about the murder of baby girls and the huge numbers of female fetuses aborted in India. She also wrote about the plight of thousands of survivors of FGM (female genital mutilation) living in Canada.

Her latest documentary, In the Name of Your Daughter, gives a voice to young girls in Tanzania who risk their lives to escape FGM and child marriage.

She was the first CanWest Global visiting professor at the School of Journalism at the University of British Columbia and in 2014 received an honorary Doctor of Laws from Carleton University.  Giselle Portenier regularly speaks about journalism and human rights, and lives in Vancouver with her husband, Chris Browne.

Awards:
George Foster Peabody Award (twice)
George Polk Award
Amnesty International Press Award (twice)
International Red Cross Award
Royal Television Society Award
Golden Nymph Award (two times)
UNDA prize
One World Broadcasting Award
Sais Novartis prize for international journalism (twice)
Sony Radio Award, Gold
New York Television festival (gold, bronze)
Joan Gullin Award (newspaper award)