Mamachas del Ring

Why do we tell the stories we tell?

When I was at the IFP Conference a few days ago I met another filmmaker, Betty M. Park. Betty was on vacation in Boliva over three years ago when she discovered the world of women's wrestling, Bolivian style. This inspired her to make Mamachas del Ring, the story of Carmen Rosa and the other women on her wrestling team, indigienous women who take their petticoats and bowler hat into the ring.

You can find out more about her film here:  www.mamachasdelring.com

The great thing about this website is that it is in English, Spanish and Italian. This is one of the first lessons for filmmakers: look at non-U.S. film festivals, and prepare your marketing materials accordingly. For a film that is mostly in Spanish, a Spanish language website is a must. There is no Portuguese version of the website, but the film will be playing soon in Brazil, as well as Italy and New York:

International Rome Film Festival, Oct. 15-23, 2009

São Paulo International Film Festival, Oct. 23-Nov. 5, 2009

Margaret Mead Film & Video Festival, NY, Friday, Nov. 13th, 2009 @ 9:15pm.

I have to wait for the Margaret Mead screening in New York before I can see the film, so I'll write about it again after that, but even as Betty told me about it that day at the IFP Conference, I recognized something about what draws us to the stories that grab us, the stories that make us set aside years of our lives to get them onto film. What struck Betty about Carmen and the other indigenous Bolivian women wrestlers is that their love of wrestling -- and their success at it -- takes a degree of courage that many U.S. career women don't have to have. Every step they take requires breaking through a glass ceiling and fighting to be given credit when credit is due them. And on top of that continuous conflict, their career almost always conflicts with their family responsibilities, to the point where they are driven to make impossible choices. Most women can relate to that, at least at some point in their lives, and it's still safe to say that for women filmmakers everywhere it's as tough to break in, stay in, and succeed as it always was. It wasn't easy for the first woman filmmaker, Alice Guy Blaché, and it isn't easy for me or Betty. No one helps us, unless we help each other -- I'll be writing more about that in my next entry.

Women filmmakers are not alone in this. I was drawn to make The 8 Faces of Jane, a film about a pioneer lesbian playwright, for very similar reasons. In 1984, when I started working on the film (it's finally in post-production), there weren't too many women playwrights a wannabee woman playwright could look up to. In fact, you could count them on one hand: Sister Hroswitha, Aphra Ben, Lillian Hellman, and Jane Chambers. The list has grown a bit since then, but we could still count them all, at least the ones who could refer to playwriting as their full-time career, with fingers and toes.

So when Betty's film comes to your part of the world, go see it, and then write me and let me know what you think. The Wrestler in petticoats and bowler hat, but this time it's all real-- what's not to like?