Anat Zuria is a documentary filmmaker and graduate of the Maaleh Film School. Her film trilogy which she made between 2002-2009 explored various aspects of femininity and womanhood in Jewish ultraorthodox society, in addition to a number of famously taboo topics within that society. The trilogy toured the international festival circuit extensively and went on to win scores of awards and in the process, also sparked quite a bit of controversy and protest amongst certain sects of the ultraorthodox community.
Part I of the trilogy, 2002’s Purity focuses on the experience of the mikveh [ritualistic bathing] and niddah [menstruation in traditional Judaism]. The film was shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival. Outside of Israel, it won the DOK.fest award at the Munich International Film Festival. Part II, Sentenced to Marriage (aka Mekudeshet) (2004) focuses on the phenomenon of women whose husbands refuse to grant them a divorce, and their fight to get that decree absolute. The film won the Wolgin Prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival, a Special Mention at the Netherlands’s IDFA, and the top prize at Toronto’s Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. Concluding the trilogy was Zuria’s 2009 film, Black Bus, which took on gender segregation. The film won Best Documentary at the Haifa International Film Festival and was also shown at the Berlin International Film Festival, to name but one.
In 2012, Zuria directed The Lesson which earned her yet another Best Documentary award at the Haifa International Film Festival. She later also went on to co-direct two films with her daughter, Shira Clara Winter: Conventional Sins (2017) that won Best Documentary at the Jerusalem Film Festival, and Reinvestigation (2018).
