Mira Hamermesh
Directing
Biography
Mira Hamermesh (1923-2012) was considered one of the most gifted documentary makers of her generation. Born to a middle-class Jewish family in Poland but spending most of her working life in the UK, she was a passionate feminist whose main subjects were women, war and social injustice. She was also the author, and a painter of distinction, with exhibitions in Jerusalem and London.
Known For
A Kafkaesque story of the bureaucracy which governs our lives. A young man leaves his passport on a train and loses his identity in a mire of forms, documents and officialdom.
Passport
Over a million black women live in a state of domestic bondage, underpaid, working long hours, at the mercy of draconian laws which separate them from their own families. This powerful 1985 documentary, shot in South Africa, examines the tragedy of Apartheid through the complex relationship between a black household worker and her white employer. This domestic situation is a microcosm of the situation at large.
Maids and Madams
Follows the friendship between an Israeli magazine editor, Chaim Shur, and a Palestinian journalist, Muna Hamzeh.