Kim Longinotto is a British documentary film maker, well known for making films about extraordinary women and also the plight of female victims of oppression or discrimination. Longinotto studied camera and directing at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, England, where she now tutors occasionally. At the age of 10 she was sent to a draconian all-girls boarding school, where she found it hard to make friends due to the mistress forbidding anyone to talk to her for a term after she became lost during a school trip. After a period of homelessness Longinotto went on to Essex University to study English and European literature and later followed friend and future filmmaker Nick Broomfield to the National Film and Television School. While studying, she made a documentary about her boarding school that was shown at the London Film Festival, and has continued to be a prolific observational documentary film maker ever since. She has received a number of awards for her films over the years, including a BAFTA for her documentary Pink Saris.