Biography

Photo: © Leni Deinhardstein

Born in 1964 in Brussels, Belgium, Borgers first works as a journalist for the Belgian television (RTBF). In 1987, she moves to San Francisco to further study directing and producing at San Francisco State University. In 1989, she wins the student « Documentary Writing » award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, Northern California Chapter. After graduating from the Broadcasting arts department in 1990, she moves back to Europe and soon prepares Truth Under Siege, (1994), a documentary about the resistance of journalists in Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia during the war. The film, co-produced and co-directed in 1994 with Leslie Asako Gladsjo, has been broadcast in Europe, Canada, and Australia. It was selected in many festivals around the world and won several prizes, including the Special Jury Prize at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Since then, Borgers has written and directed many award-winning documentaries including Greyhound, Aller simple (Greyhound, one-way ticket, 1998), a road movie questioning the American dream ; Das Arrangement (The Arrangement, 2005), the portraits of young Austrian women from Turkish descent facing the tradition of arranged marriages; Winds of sand, women of rock (2009), the tale of a tradition carried by Tubu women in the Sahara; Greetings from the colony (2011), the story of Suzanne, the child of a colonial State agent and an African woman in a time when interracial unions were banned, recently selected at Hotdocs, Toronto, and Vues d’Afrique (Montréal).