By WALNICE NOGUEIRA GALVÃO*
This year, the Gramado Film Festival, the largest and most prestigious in the country, received a complaint for not having women on the jury
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This year, the Gramado Film Festival, the largest and most prestigious in the country, received a complaint for not having women on the jury – when there are so many Brazilian professionals in the field. Responding, the president of the jury said that the jurors were all men, but they had objective criteria, above these things. So, filmmaker Lúcia Murat wrote her a letter, telling her to cast women and see if the award wouldn't change... Elementary, my dear Watson.
Not even football forgives women. It is from this unexpected angle, infamous for machismo and public aggression, that interesting news comes. And, not to say that there were no women mentioned in the Football Museum when it opened in 2008, there was an effigy of Marta, six times voted the best football player in the world.
Lúcia Murat was right. It was only after placing a woman, Renata Beltrão, in management roles (Communication Coordination) at the Football Museum, that everything began to change. In 2008, a survey showed that 70% of visitors were men. And they thought everything was normal. But Renata Beltrão disagreed.
And he went searching. The result is Call the girls for the game: Museology and gender at the Football Museum, master's degree defended at the USP Museum of Archeology and Ethnology. The results could not be more intriguing and stem from a largely ignored history.
Who knew that women's football was prohibited by law, and that was until 1979? The text of the law insinuated that such a sport could harm reproductive functions... And, to the meetings to create the Football Museum, to be created, no women were invited. Football was a man's thing.
Afterwards, there were two exhibitions that dealt with the topic. “Visibility for women's football” (2015) included in its planning the competition of female professionals, not only athletes, but also referees and field journalists. And he tried to include women in the museum's collection, changing the showcases and the permanent exhibition. Marta was no longer alone. "Counterattack!" (2019) dedicated itself to the history of the sport, showing the strategies created by women to be able to play, circumventing the ban, presenting themselves as amateurs and not professionals, playing charity games, etc.
What happened in 1982 caused a stir, when actress Ruth Escobar organized the 1st. Festival of Women in the Arts, programming a women's game at Morumbi, before the usual Corinthians x São Paulo. At the time, the players were blocked, with Sócrates and Casagrande coming to their defense and threatening not to enter the field. After much parliamentarianism, the game would be held, but only as a charity event.
And it was only in 1991 that the first women's football World Cup would be held, organized by FIFA and based in China.
These exhibitions prepared by the Football Museum with women in mind gradually changed the panorama. So much so that, when the exhibition appeared Queens of Hearts (2023), the balance between visitors reached half and half, leaving behind the 70% percentage of men from the early days.
Taboos like these are not exclusive to us. The English film Dodging destiny (Bend it like Beckman) tells the story of a girl who wanted to play football and, to complicate matters, belonged to an Indian family with traditional customs. Although she lived in England, an arranged marriage awaited her, when all she wanted was to dedicate herself to professional football, emulating in the footsteps of her idol David Beckman.
And speaking of which, a woman – among the many good filmmakers we have the privilege of having in our country – could direct a film about a similar case, chronicling the legal difficulties of the issue among us. Who qualifies?
Good luck! The next Women's Football Cup in 2027 will be hosted by Brazil, and it will be a first, not only in our country but throughout Latin America. Brazil beat Europe in the candidacy and, although it already tried in 2023, it achieved nothing due to lack of support from the federal government. Which now, on the contrary, was an asset that contributed to the victory.
2.
Anyone who saw Julia Roberts and Kristen Stewart barefoot on the red carpet in Cannes rubbed their eyes, in disbelief at the unusual sight. It was a protest against the requirement, soon repealed, that prohibited entry to women who did not wear high heels. In other words, just another thoughtless act of misogyny, in the exercise of patriarchy...
However, the Cannes Festival, the biggest and most prestigious of all, has been a bulwark for women's causes in recent years. In 2018, Cate Blanchet was president of the jury, leading with Agnès Varda a march of 82 women in cinema, to concretely show the number of female directors who have already climbed the ladder, when compared to the 1.688 male directors who have done so.
As for the maximum award, the Palme d'Or, look at the statistics, which confirm this data: 71 male directors have already received it, while to date only 4 female directors have been honored, since New Zealander Jane Campion broke the taboo with The piano, Last year it was Justine Triet's turn for Anatomy of a fall (2023), only the third woman to receive the Palme d'Or.
This year's 2024 Cannes festival continues on the feminist trail. The two honorary awards went to a woman and a man – and, to be glad, not to two men. George Lucas took one but, fortunately, Meryl Streep, by far Hollywood's biggest star and a great actress by any standard, took the other. She always had that simple look, white hair collected in a bun without artifice, dangling earrings, lightly made-up, in an elegant plain dress with long sleeves and no neckline, collected in a slight drape at the waist... And her healthy air of a serious professional, averse to exhibitionism and hype.
Highlight was given to a handful of female directors, who competed for the Palme d'Or, including one from India (who would end up winning the Grand Prize), one from England and two from France.
One of the French women directed The substance that, Billed as “satirical horror”, it arouses curiosity. It brings back Demi Moore, who hasn't had much luck since she returned to the screen. Fulfilling a typical woman's destiny, she, at the height of her fame and the most productive phase of her life, got married and had three daughters, dedicating herself to raising them and detonating her career. She was missing for years and when she reappeared, it was at a lower level. She deserves a return and, when she appeared in person, the audience in Cannes erupted in an ovation that lasted 12 minutes.
After all, the Palme d'Or would really go to an American, Sean Baker, with Anora. At least put one stripr as the protagonist, a theme dear to this independent director, who in his gratitude dedicated the film to sex workers around the world.
This year the jury was chaired by Greta Gerwig, with a distinguished career in New York cinema. When she decided to take on management, she was soon successful, standing out with Ladybird, lovely women (remake of the book little women, by Louisa May Alcott) and above all the acclaimed Chin. Today she is recognized as the author of films that challenge the standards of femininity imposed by patriarchy.
The best actress award had a peculiarity: it was shared by the female cast. All the protagonists of Emilia Pérez, a musical filmed in Mexico by Frenchman Jacques Audiard, jointly received first place: Adriana Paz, Zoé Saldaña, Selena Gomez and Karla Sofía Gascón. The latter is a transgender woman, the first to receive an award at Cannes.
In general, in the themes of several of the 22 films competing for the show's main prize, sex workers, refugees and transgender women stand out,
Lately, L`Oréal started to fund an award for short films made by women, which included two Brazilian women on the special jury, Taís Araújo and Gabriela Carneiro da Cunha. Taís Araújo looked stunning on the red carpet, in a gold-yellow strapless dress, which contrasted with her skin tone, and her huge, natural hair, standing on end. Lest one think that it is a smaller jury, with smaller jurors, it should be noted that they performed their task shoulder to shoulder with none other than Viola Davis and Helen Mirren.
*Walnice Nogueira Galvão Professor Emeritus at FFLCH at USP. She is the author, among other books, of reading and rereading (Sesc\Ouro over Blue). [amzn.to/3ZboOZj]
To read the first article in the series click on https://dpp.cce.myftpupload.com/as-invisiveis/
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