Speed Sisters, a documentary on a group of Palestinian women who have discovered a kind of transcendence through their love of street racing, is coming to your screens next month.
Life on the occupied West Bank is no doubt tough, but despite a tangle of roadblocks and checkpoints, a thriving street car-racing scene has apparently emerged. And at the heart of it is a team of five women who are the first all-women racing group in the Middle East. Apparently they have been grabbing headlines and turning heads at improvised tracks across the West Bank. These five women have sped their way into the centre of the gritty, male-dominated Palestinian racing world.
The documentary, made by Amber Fares, weaves together the story of the womens’ lives on and off the track. It’s refreshing to see both the plight of the Palestinian people and the oft-demonised street racing scene presented in such a surprising, thought-provoking manner.
We’ve acted on the thought for a long time that cars and racing them and driving them in a spirited manner can mean a whole lot more than a one-dimensional, knuckle-dragging thrill.
This film just might hammer the message home.
Speed Sisters comes to UK cinemas and on-demand on 25 March 2016.
