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Directors/Producers: Barbara Attie, Janet Goldwater
Mrs. Goundo's Daughter is the story of a young mother's quest to keep her baby daughter healthy and whole. It is also the story of the African tradition of female genital cutting, which dates back thousands of years, and how it affects people's lives in just two of the many places where the practice is being debated today. Mrs. Goundo's husband fled drought and ethnic conflict in his native Mali, West Africa sixteen years ago. Mrs. Goundo came to the United States in 1999. Together, they are raising three young children in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. To stay in the US, Mrs. Goundo must persuade an immigration judge that her 2-year-old daughter Djenebou, born in the US, will almost certainly suffer clitoral excision if Goundo is deported. In Mali, where up to 85% of women and girls are excised, Mrs. Goundo and her husband are convinced they would be powerless to protect their daughter from her well-intentioned grandparents, who believe all girls should be excised.
Barbara Attie and Janet Goldwater have worked collaboratively since 1990 making widely acclaimed documentaries that have been broadcast nationally and internationally. In 2005 the Philadelphia-based filmmakers were awarded the prestigious Pew Fellowship in the Arts. Their most recent collaboration, Rosita (2005), is the story of a nine-year-old Nicaraguan girl who was raped and made pregnant, and her parents' struggle with the medical establishment, the government and the church to end her pregnancy. Broadcast in Latin America on HBO/Cinemax as well as in Europe and Asia, Rosita was selected to screen at INPUT 2007 and has been shown at film festivals worldwide, including the Human Rights Watch Festival and Silverdocs. Attie and Goldwater's 2002 ITVS production Maggie Growls, a whimsical biography of Gray Panther founder Maggie Kuhn, was selected to be the premiere program on PBS' documentary series Independent Lens. Other Attie and Goldwater documentaries broadcast nationally on PBS include Daring to Resist: Three Women Face the Holocaust (2000) and Landowska: Uncommon Visionary (1999).
Attie & Goldwater Productions
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