Pride of Place

Showing at the Hot Docs Film Festival: Pride of Place, directed by Kim Longinotto and Dorothea Gadzidis

Synopsis from the Hot Docs website:

Pride Of Place is Longinotto’s first film, made with Dorthea Gazidis while studying camera and directing at England’s National Film School. For Longinotto, it was a revenge film. As a teenager, she was forced to attend a girl’s boarding school in an isolated castle in Buckinghamshire. At 17 she ran away, only to return years later to make Pride Of Place, an indictment of her alma mater. The film is dark and expressive. Longinotto gives us a look at the school from the students’ point of view—as a miniature fascist state with absurd rules, cruel punishments, and little room for individual expression. One year after the release of the film, the boarding school was closed down. With Pride Of Place, Longinotto explores a theme she returns to repeatedly in subsequent films: the individual’s revolt against oppressive authorities and stifling traditions. - Shannon Abel