The Judge, a new film by award-winning director Erika Cohn, tells the incredible story of how Kholoud Al-Faqih achieved her improbable dream of representing women in the Middle East’s all-male religious courts



This week, Small Changes host Lucy Lamble meets film-maker Erika Cohn, whose documentary In Football We Trust won her an Emmy.

Cohn’s latest film is The Judge, a documentary about a lawyer, Kholoud Al-Faqih, and the challenges she overcame to become the first female judge in the Middle East’s sharia courts. These religious courts deal with family issues and have a tremendous effect on women’s lives.

Guardian film reviewer Peter Bradshaw described the film, which follows Kholoud’s courageous rise to become a judge in the Palestinian territories, and her tireless pursuit of justice for women, as a “calmly intelligent and observant” documentary about one of the very few women who has managed to get inside the system.

The Judge will have its UK premiere this week at Bertha DocHouse, at the Curzon cinema in London. It can also be streamed on demand from iTunes, Amazon or Vimeo.

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