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Broadcast on "PBS World" February 2011 on AfroPoP: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange
 | Mrs. Goundo's Daughter premiered on PBS World in February 2011 |
2011-2012 Look for Mrs. Goundo's Daughter at film festivals around the world
Amnesty International Film Festival Vancouver, Canada (November 2011)
First Annual Anthropological Film Festival Jerusalem (November 2011)
First Festival of Cinema and Human Rights, Montevideo, Uruguay (December 2011)
Select Awards
Best Social Documentary 2011 Addis International Film Festival Ethiopia
Winner for Feature Documentary Film Moondance International Film Festival (September 2011)
First Special Mention, International Film Festival on Human Rights DerHumALC, Buenos Aires, Argentina (April 2010)
Festivals & Screenings
Silverdocs/AFI Discovery Channel Film Festival Washington, D.C. June 2009
Human Rights Watch Int'l Film Festival Lincoln Center, NYC June, 2009
Sundance Institute Film Series Documentary Showcase Park City, Utah September, 2009
Women Make Movies Film Festival, San Francisco September, 2009
Urbanworld Film Festival New York City Screenings: September 24 and 25, 2009
Harlem Stage New York, December 2, 2009
This Human World International Human Rights Film Festival Vienna, December 3-13, 2009
Human Rights Watch Traveling Film Festival International House, Philadelphia, Feb. 12, 2010
The Family of Woman Film Festival Americans for UNFPA, Sun Valley, Idaho, Feb. 26-28, 2010
Human Rights Watch International Film Festival London March 2010
Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival Sebastopol, CA, March 2010
Bermuda International Film Festival in Hamilton Bermuda, March 2010
DITSHWANELO Human Rights Film Festival Botswana, March 2010
Through Women's Eyes Film Festival & the Sarasota Film Festival Florida, April 2010
Americans for UNFPA and the Minnesota/Saint Paul International Film Festival April 2010
Africa World Documentary Film Festival, St. Louis and Barbados, February 2010
Montreal International Black Film Festival, September 2010
United Nations Association Film Festival, October 2010
International Human Rights Film Festival in Albania, October 2010
Ad Hoc: Inconvenient Films, Lithuanian Centre for Human Rights , October 2010
Harvard College International Women's Rights Collective, April 2011
Mid-Atlantic Women's Studies Association April 2011
"Another heart-wrenching testament to the integrity and solidarity of women in the face of staggering adversity, Mrs. Goundo's Daughter follows the efforts of a West African woman living in Philadelphia to secure the asylum she thinks will save her two-year-old daughter from the senseless barbarism of genital mutilation. As evinced by their previous film Rosita (HRW '06), humanist filmmakers Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater demonstrate a nerve-shredding talent for cinematic juxtaposition—throughout, they intercut Goundo's legal nightmare with the lead-up to a mass female circumcision in Mali—that avoids feeling trivial." —Ed Gonzalez, Village Voice, June 2009
"... a deft, sensitive and balanced documentary about an issue that is too easily sensationalized and misunderstood. The filmmakers presented many telling nuances that may otherwise escape the debate about FGC and gender-asylum here in the US." —Kim Thuy Seelinger, Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Hastings College of the Law
MRS. GOUNDO'S DAUGHTER is the story of a young mother's quest to keep her baby daughter healthy and whole. It is also the story of the African tradition of female genital cutting, which dates back thousands of years—and how it affects people's lives in just two of the many places where the practice is being debated today.
Mrs. Goundo's husband fled drought and ethnic conflict in his native Mali, West Africa sixteen years ago. Mrs. Goundo came to the United States in 1999. Together, they are raising three young children in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
After the hearing.
To stay in the U.S., Mrs. Goundo must persuade an immigration judge that her two-year old daughter Djenebou, born in the U.S., will almost certainly suffer clitoral excision if Goundo is deported. In Mali, where up to 85% of women and girls are excised, Mrs. Goundo and her husband are convinced they would be powerless to protect their daughter from her well-intentioned grandparents, who believe all girls should be excised.
MRS. GOUNDO'S DAUGHTER bridges Mrs. Goundo's two worlds. In a Malian village, we see 62 girls, six months to ten years old, preparing to be excised just as their mothers, sisters, aunts and grandmothers were before them. The girls are warned they must be brave and not cry, although, as one mother tells us: "The pain is very deep. There is nothing we can do to lessen it." We hear Malian activists fighting to end the practice, and traditionalists who defend it. We see its deep roots in the largely Islamic culture.
Mrs. Goundo with friends at the salon.
4,500 miles away in Philadelphia, we hear Mrs. Goundo's friends from West Africa tell how, even though they themselves were excised, they are determined to save their daughters from the pain and the sometimes horrific health consequences of ritual cutting. Mrs. Goundo is the first of her community to seek asylum on these grounds, and in MRS. GOUNDO'S DAUGHTER we join her friends' anxious vigil as they await the outcome of her asylum hearing.
MRS. GOUNDO'S DAUGHTER is a co-production of Attie & Goldwater Productions, Inc. and the Independent Television Service (ITVS), with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
Funding provided by the following generous supporters:
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Sundance Documentary Fund
Morton K. & Jane Blaustein Foundation
The Philadelphia Foundation
Women's Way Community Women's Fund
Lucius and Eva Eastman Fund
Pennsylvania Council on the Arts
Pew Fellowships in the Arts
PIFVA
