Tina Gharavi

Tina Gharavi
Gharavi at the Story Engine Screenwriting Conference, UK
Born	Tehran, Iran
Occupation	Director/Screenwriter, Professor
Years active	1998-present
Website	http://www.bridgeandtunnelproductions.com

Tina Gharavi (Persian: تینا غروی‎) is a BAFTA-nominated Film/TV Director and Screenwriter. Gharavi is known for making innovative cross-platform stories about outsiders, misfits and people in extraordinary situations.^[1]

Gharavi's award-winning work have been screened internationally, broadcast 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. Her films 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 others.

Her debut feature film, I Am Nasrine was nominated for a BAFTA.^[2]Sir Ben Kingsley called it "an important and much-needed film."^[3] Gharavi has TV credits to her name including directing on The Tunnel the UK equivalent of The Bridge for Sky and Ackley Bridge for Channel Four TV.

Biography

Gharavi was born in Tehran and is based in the UK and Los Angeles. She was raised in the UK, New Zealand, New Jersey and studied filmmaking in France at Le Fresnoy studio national des arts contemporains near Lille, France. In 1998 Gharavi set up the film company, Bridge + Tunnel Productions, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. In 2000, Gharavi set up the Kooch Cinema Group, a media training project, for asylum seekers and refugee participants; a project started after returning to Iran to make a Channel Four commissioned documentary, Mother/Country, where she revisited her mother's house after 23 years. In 2005, she established a separate media charity, Bridge + Tunnel Voices, to undertake the charitable and educational work she initiated mainly working with refugees and asylum seekers; stepping down as the lead creative director in 2015. In 2014, she established Bridge + Tunnel France in Paris, with her partner, James Richard Baillie, to specialise in European co-productions. Gharavi has been awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (2003), received a UK Arts Council Decibel Spotlight Award and served as a diversity champion for a variety of organisations as trustee (UK Refugee Council, Arts Council North-East, Tyneside Cinema and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Arts). Gharavi is an Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) in Film & Digital Media at the University of Newcastle. She is a previous Fellow of the MIT Documentary Lab in Boston and was invited to join the BAFTA Academy in 2017.

Reviews

Peter Bradshaw 4-star review of I Am Nasrine in The Guardian:

The Bafta-nominated debut tells its story of Iranian emigrants to Britain with integrity and feeling... A valuable debut, shot with a fluent kind of poetry.^[4]

Jackie Kay, poet, has said of I Am Nasrine:

...I Am Nasrine is a tender and affecting coming of age movie... Heartening and uplifting to come across an Iranian woman filmmaker with Gharavi's magical yet methodical talent.

Sir Ben Kingsley has said of I Am Nasrine:

...In our economic climate this is a film of vital importance. It is now, in this uncertain climate, that the innocent strangers in our midst could so easily be victimised... It has always been my experience that when one's motives are pure, the angels will come. Having met Tina and talked about her aspirations for this film, I know her motives are pure. She aims to make a life enhancing film. An important and much needed film.^[5]

Mark Cousins writing about I Am Nasrine:

...It made me cry. It is a film that captures the beauty of human interactions - tentative and curious - and is full of ideas about how to frame and tell a story. i really admired the ellipses in your film, the boldness with which you jumped forward, and what you left out. And, of course, it is profoundly relevant and puts to shame many portayals of Iranian people.

Shari Frilot, Sundance programmer, has said of Closer:

...it takes documentary to the next level.^[6]

In The London Evening Standard it was said of Mother/Country:

...This documentary alone justifies the Alt-TV Strand.

In the jury statement announced by Jiří Hubička as part of One World Film Festival, The Czech Radio Award, it was said:

The jury agreed that within the collection of documentaries, the film Closer is a work of great creativity. The director uses with amazing sensitivity a large scale of real sounds and music of different types and genres (electronic, techno, modern artificial music) to underline the distinct and meaningful changes in the atmosphere. The manipulation of authentic sound almost to the extent that there is total silence is particularly compelling in the central scene of the film in which there is an intimate discussion between mother and daughter. The use of sound exponentiates the message of the film, which is a testimony about an uneasy way to find one_s identity, and the ability to overcome prejudices set by generational differences and other barriers.^[7]

Selected filmography

References