Special Screening: GAEA GIRLS

Coming to NYC’s 92YTribeca this Friday, March 23: GAEA GIRLS

UK director Kim Longinotto and her sometime collaborator Jano Williams premiered their look at Japanese female wrestlers at Toronto in 2000. It screened at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, Chicago, and AFI Fest the same year, picking up awards at the latter two. After extensively touring the LGBT circuit the next year, including NewFest, Frameline, and Outfest, it received a limited theatrical release.

The acclaimed co-directors of SHINJUKU BOYS and DREAM GIRLS returned to those films’ Japanese setting for this gripping documentary exploration of the world of the professional women wrestlers known as the Gaea Girls. Taking a purely observational approach, Longinotto & Williams allow their powerful footage to speak for itself. The naive recruits of the Gaea training camp aspire to be professionals, but first they have to survive the tough-love charge of the arrogant coach, Nagayo Chigusa, and the physically grueling and mentally exhausting training regimen she puts them through before they get their shot in the ring. Sublimely transcending its subject matter, the doc offers a fascinating insight into the lives of young women who go against Japanese cultural dictates for women to be submissive to instead express aggression and sheer physicality.