FINDING BIBI

Bita Haidarian, an award-winning Iranian American filmmaker fresh out of film school, sets off on a journey around the world to answer the big questions – who am I, where do I come from, and where can a girl find a good laser hair removalist?

Born in America to Baha'i refugee parents from Iran, Bita tells the tragic-comic story of her family coming to America, her childhood in Texas, trying to fit in, and competitive cheerleading – all part of the quest of a girl who knows more about MTV than Al Jazeera.

Bita takes her youthful irreverence and unique vantage point as a woman of both east and west and looks at bizarre variations on pornography in the Middle East, the Ecstasy “Rave” parties in Tehran, the lone female rickshaw driver in Delhi, as well as interview such notables as Anousheh Ansari (first female space explorer), Pakistani Super Model Amna Haq, and human rights activist Mukhtaran Bibi in Pakistan. This writer-director of the award winning short film Virgin 72 described by film critic Adrian Martin as the “the best hope for film and politics in Australia”; wants to know if her opinions and prejudices will change, or remain the same?

From Tehrangeles where Iranian girls get their noses re-shaped in posh Beverly Hills offices, to the garment district of LA where Bita cut her teeth in the fashion industry, to high society London where veiled women take lessons on how to secure a husband. Where princes and emirs mix with lords and ladies, Bita will take us into lesser-known corners of women and the Middle Eastern world.

Finding Bibi smashes worldwide stereotypes about women in the Middle East and is simultaneously a clarion call for the emancipation of women around the world.

And Bita’s plea to public - please watch my film! If this film doesn’t succeed, I’m going to have to get married.