Land Gold Women

This is one of the most important films that I have ever experienced. The ending is given to us in the first few minutes yet the tension is taut throughout. It is so well made that I did not know that this was a low budget film until I read it somewhere online. The scenes and settings are simple, but at no point does it look like someone was cutting corners in order to save money. So back to the "important" part: This film takes on the issue of so called "honor killings" in Britain, opening up a perspective on an ongoing social tragedy that almost everyone works hard to ignore. This brilliant debut by director and writer Avantika Hari is well made in every way, but there was an element that took this film to the heights of my all time film list. As an American Muslim film geek of Arab descent, I have a particular interest in films about Muslims and Arabs. Islam and Muslims are a tough thing to portray in a film. There is an explanation element that is more or less a necessary component; as well as that simple but seemingly impossible part of just presenting people's perspectives as they are in reality, no spin no judgment. They usually screw up the first part and it just goes downhill from there. In the end, everybody screws up. In my experience Avantika Hari stands alone as the one who didn't. If you have the opportunity to see this rare film, move mountains to do so.