Tina Gharavi

Tina Gharavi (Persian: تینا غروی‎) is a BAFTA and Sundance nominated Artist, Director and Screenwriter, born in Tehran, who lives in the UK and Los Angeles. She is a global citizen; raised in the UK, New Zealand, New Jersey and studied filmmaking in France at Le Fresnoy studio national des arts contemporains. Gharavi is known for innovative cross-platform stories about outsiders, misfits and rebels as well as people in extraordinary situations.[1] Gharavi's work is simultaneously intimate and lyrical, as well as poignant and political. Her work often explores how we tell the stories of 'the other.' Her debut feature, I Am Nasrine was nominated for a BAFTA.[2]Sir Ben Kingsley called it "an important and much-needed film."[3] and Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian gave the film 4 stars. 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. She's showrunner for an Icelandic/British Detective series, Refurrin (The Fox), a loosely-based adaptation of an Icelandic best-seller and detective series.

Tina Gharavi
Gharavi at the Story Engine Screenwriting Conference, UK
Born	Tehran, Iran
Occupation	Artist, director, screenwriter, scholar
Years active	1998–present
Website	Official website

Gharavi's award-winning work has been 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). 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.

She was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, received a UK Arts Council Decibel Spotlight Award and served as a diversity champion for a variety of organisations (UK Refugee Council, Arts Council North-East, Tyneside Cinema and BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Arts). Gharavi is an Associate Professor in Film & Digital Media at the University of Newcastle. She was invited to join the BAFTA Academy in 2017 and received a Fellowship from the MIT Documentary Lab in Boston.

Production

Gharavi established the film company, Bridge + Tunnel Productions, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England in 1998. 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 co-established Bridge + Tunnel France in Paris, with James Richard Baillie, to specialise in European co-productions.

Selected filmography

Year	Film | TV	Notes
2021	Refurinn/The Fox (Red Arrow/Endor Productions/Which Witch)	High End Episodic TV - Director/Showrunner. Icelandic-British detective series in development.
2021	Untitled F Feature Film	Feature Film - Director/Producer/Screenwriter Currently in development with the British Film Institute. A biopic of a radical, largely unknown feminist icon.
2021	The Good Iranian	Feature Film - Director/Producer/Screenwriter Currently in development with Film4 and the British Film Institute and with finance/production partners Back-Up (France). Website: The Good Iranian
2020	Tribalism Is Killing Us	Feature Documentary Film - Director/Producer Website: Tribalism is Killing Us.
2020	Marisol	Feature Film - Director/Producer/Screenwriter Website: Marisol.
2018	Ackley Bridge (Channel Four TV/The Forge)	High End Episodic TV- Episodes 5 & 6 - Director Website: Channel Four's Ackley Bridge, Series 2.
2017	The Tunnel: Vengeance (Sky TV / Kudos	High End Episodic TV - Second Unit Director Website: Sky TV's The Tunnel, Series 3.
2015	People Like Us	Short Documentary Film - Director/Producer/Screenwriter 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)
2013	I Am Nasrine	Feature Film - Director/Producer/Screenwriter 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.
2008	The King of South Shields	Documentary - Director/Producer 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.
2007-2013	Last of the Dictionary Men	Installation & Touring Exhibition - Filmmaker/Artist International touring exhibition, opened at BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in 2008, traveled to Yemen for 2 years including Aden, San'aa, Ta'izz, and returned to London Mosaic Rooms (2013) and the University of Exeter (2016). 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]
2007	Perfect to Begin	Short Fiction- Script Editor/Producer Awards/Honours : Winner: TCM Classic Shorts Competition [5]
2007	Two Lighthouses	Poetry Film & Documentary- Director/ Producer
2007	Asylum Carwash	Documentary Installation- Director/Producer Commissioned - Sunderland Museum & Winter Gardens 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'.
2006	Bread: Nearest Neighbor: Israel & Palestine	Documentary Installation- Director/Producer Opened - Shanghai Zendai Museum of Contemporary Art, China
2004	Featherhead	Short Fiction- Director/Producer Distributed - Alzheimer's Society Filmed by Cinematographer Brian Tufano
2002	A Town Like Lackawanna	Documentary- Director/Producer/Camera Broadcast - Buffalo Public Broadcast Channel 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.
2002	Mother/Country	Documentary- Director/Producer Broadcast - Channel Four TV, UK & Sundance Channel/Showtime, USA 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".
2001	Closer	Documentary- Director/Producer Broadcast - Sundance Channel/Showtime, USA, EBS, South Korea 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.

References

1. interview with Gharavi at Netribution
2. "Tina Gharavi: Q&A". Guru.bafta.org. Retrieved 28 October 2014.
3. http://birds-eye-view.co.uk/2013/04/26/bev-chats-to-i-am-nasrine-dir-tina-gharavi/
4. • 'The King of South Shields: A knockout royal visit' at the BBC
5. "London Film Festival 2007: TCM Classic Shorts Competition". FILMdetail. Retrieved 28 October 2014.
6. 'Backing for car wash boss' by Tina Gharavi in The Shields Gazette