Royal Holloway PhD student Iris Zaki has been recognised as one of the best up-and-coming documentary makers in the UK at the Grierson Awards in London.

Iris, who studies in the Department of Media Arts at Egham's Royal Holloway, University of London won the Sky Atlantic Best Student Documentary category of The Grierson Trust’s 2016 Awards. Her film, Women in Sink, uses an innovative technique of her own devising which she has named ‘the abandoned camera’, that allows her to film open conversations within closed communities.

Working in a hair salon owned by a Christian Arab in Haifa, Israel, Iris installed a camera over a basin and chatted to clients about topics including Israeli history, politics, life and love as she was shampooing their hair.

The Grierson trust describes her film as painting 'an unexpected choral portrait of this space that provides temporary freedom, where Arab and Jewish women share their differences and a community of views on politics, history and love.'

In 2015 Women in Sink won the Most Innovative Film award in The International Mid-Length Film competition at Visions du Reel film festival in Nyon, Switzerland.

Established in 1972, the Griersons are the biggest event in the UK documentary calendar. The awards recognise and celebrate documentaries from Britain and abroad that have made a significant contribution to the genre and that demonstrate quality, integrity, creativity, originality and overall excellence.

Iris was recognised alongside winners including the BBC, Channel 4 and Louis Theroux.

Commenting on the win, Iris’s PhD supervisor, Professor John Ellis said “For Women in Sink to win the Grierson is a double honour for Iris. Not only is it the most prestigious of the 12 awards won by her film, but John Grierson’s writing on documentary has also been a key source for her creative practice-based PhD research here at Royal Holloway.”