women’s football – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

THE HERRICANES – Review by T.J. Callihan

October 16, 2024October 16, 2024 T. J. Callahan documentaries, Olivia Kuan, The Herricanes, Title IX, women’s football

Hurricanes have been front and center in the news of late. Towns and people’s lives have been devastated from Texas to Florida to North Carolina. But in this article we aren’t talking about Beryl or Helene or Milton. The well deserved spotlight is on Monkey, Peaches, Basia, Jane, and the rest of The Houston HERricanes. They were part of a groundbreaking group of women who played full tackle football in the largest city in Texas during the 1970’s. Their story is finally being told in the new documentary The Herricanes, produced and directed by Olivia Kuan, daughter of Basia, who played safety and corner for the team for 3 seasons.

Festivals Reviews

COPA 71 (TIFF 2023) – Review by Kat Sachs

September 12, 2023September 12, 2023 Kat Sachs 1971 Women’s World Cup, Brandi Chastain, David Goldblatt, documentary, James Erskine, Rachel Ramsay, Serena Williams, TIFF 2023, women’s football

The film opens with two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion Brandi Chastain being handed an iPad. “That’s a massive stadium,” she says, observing the footage of a football match playing on screen. “It’s a men’s football match?” The realization dawns on her. “It’s women’s football. What? Okay, this is women’s football. What year was this?” A voice offscreen replies, “1971.” This approach ingeniously demonstrates not just the film’s premise, but the fact that even nowadays as we seek to rectify what’s been overlooked in the past, something so massive could still be unknown by so many. Through an effective merging of contextualization, rarely seen archival ephemera, and poignant interviews with those women who, for fifty years, had assumed their achievement was destined to be forgotten, Ramsay and Erskine have created a document as edifying as it is inspiring, one that will hopefully have more people asking, “What is Copa 71?”