Video Workshop Underway: Girls go to Cinema for the first time!

The protagonists of "Goals for Girls: The Movie" with TV star Soledad Silvera.

For many girls on the Villa 31 soccer team, “Las Aliadas” (the allies), last Saturday night was the first time they saw a movie in a movie theater. It was a great experience: they loved the movie, the romantic comedy “Igualita a mi”, and even got their photo taken with Argentine television star Soledad Silvera.

This is the first outing for the video workshop we are starting for the protagonists of our feature documentary in production, “Goals for Girls: The Movie“. You can read more about the project that follows a group of slum girls who dare to play a sport off limits to women in Argentina: soccer, on the official website http://www.goalsforgirlsthemovie.org and find out how you can get involved.

Taking the girls to the movies reminded me how important it is to be exposed to art and beauty, and have a chance to relax. We also saw first hand the discrimination that the girls face everyday for being slum dwellers. Everywhere we went, the police looked at them and would tell them to behave, and many of the girls don’t know how to travel around the city. This is because the girls are left alone by the cops when they are in the slum, so they prefer to stay there where they feel safe. They are just a few subway stops away from Corrientes Avenue, the “Broadway” of Buenos Aires, and most have never gone.

The girls in the lobby, with filmmakers Ginger, Gabriel and Corcho.

The outing was full of magic–we first had a snack at a cafe in the San Martin Theater and listened to a bit of music from Australia because a band was playing live in the lobby. We then talked to the girls and they said they really want to film a horror film (why not? why do ghosts always have to haunt mansions and castles?) and the started taking photos with our camera.

This Saturday we are going to have the first official class where we will start by showing parts of the Brazilian classic “City of God” which is a about a favela, but tells a violent story with humor and humanity. Also, the protagonist of the story is able to escape the cycle of poverty and violence by becoming a photographer: there is no better metaphor for us to show!

Ginger Gentile and “Goals for Girls: The Movie” on Expat Daily News

by Tracey Chandler, contributing blogger

Read the in-depth interview on Expat Daily News that Ginger Gentile gave about the documentary film “Goals for Girls: The Movie,” that is being filmed at present by San Telmo Productions, Buenos Aires.
http://www.expatdailynewssouthamerica.com/2010/06/expat-interview-with-documentary.html

The interview is really detailed and shares a lot of information about the current film project to make a full length feature documentary about a group of girls in Villa 31 shantytown who dare to play soccer, which is considered a boy’s sport in Argentina.

The article allows the reader a real insight into the reasons behind San Telmo Production’s desire to create and film, “Goals for Girls: The Movie” and Ginger’s experiences as an expat in Argentina. For more than 8 years she has lived, worked, married and started a business in Buenos Aires. Her advice to fellow expats: Don’t expect to replicate your life in the US abroad. . . While I do these things because I love them, it has been easier for us to create projects than to get work on other people’s projects.

On top of the interview, there is a highly interactive Facebook Fan Page that you can join in order to show support for the project. Some of the project’s really supportive friends have been using the donate button on the Fan Page in order to donate small sums of money via Facebook too. These funds will be used to start a video workshop for the girls so they can contribute to the documentary.

The project, with their support of many, looks to be a real success and a positive lifeline for the girls from Villa 31.

“Goals for Girls The Movie” Now on Face Book!

If you want to stay on top of all the happenings of the latest documentary of San Telmo Productions, it’s never been easier than joining the facebook  page which features a cool photo-montage, the award winning short and tons of micro-blogging and links to related films and news articles, all in English!

The page was designed by our contributing blogger Tracey Chandler (who also did the rad photo-montage) and is our latest attempt at crowd-sourcing. Donations will go to starting a video workshop for the teenage protagonists so that they can contribute to the documentary.

“Goals for Girls” has already racked up a lot of press mentions and festival entries, including the prestigious New York Latino Film Festival, to be held in late August in the big apple.

Hope to see you there!

“Goals for Girls” gets BIG Article in Buenos Aires Newspaper

by Tracey Chandler, contributing blogger

“Goals for Girls: The Movie” was featured recently in the new printed newspaper, El Tiempo, in their important Sunday edition and with a two-page spread. A scanned copy of the printed article (in Spanish) can be seen below.

First page of "Goals for Girls" Article in El Tiempo

Click here to read the pdf format of the Article in El Tiempo

The quality and size of the feature is testament to the fact that “Goals for Girls: The Movie” is an incredibly worthwhile and interesting project for a number of reasons, not discounting the fact that we are in the middle of the World Cup 2010 and that gender prejudices in Argentina are still rife.

The article not only mentions the documentary but contains a quote from co-director Ginger Gentile that sums up the whole project: “One of the goals for San Telmo Productions is to break gender and cultural stereotypes. We picked this group of girls as a subject because they have a clear conflict based on gender steretotypes.”

The remainder of the article talks about how hard it is for the girls to play a sport they love: Soccer and how the sport has brought them together as a group.

To help these girls have more of a voice, please visit http://www.goalsforgirlsthemovie.org to learn more about how you can help.

Facebook Page for Goals for Girls-Coming Soon!

by Tracey Chandler, contributing blogger

Goals for Girls: The Movie is a full length documentary film that is currently being shot in Villa 31 shantytown in Buenos Aires and tracks the story of a group of girls from the slum that desperately wants to play football (soccer). They have built a team and play regularly. They have also won some competitions in the past too, but they do all of this against the prejudices of their close society, their families and the boys in the area who deliberately disrupt their games and practices.

Now is the time to begin supporting their efforts and the efforts of the documentary which will tell their story through becoming a fan on Facebook. The documentary short, which is already a huge success, has been entered into the New York Latino Film Festival 2010 and the INCAA has backed the feature length project with a sizable grant. However, the grant is by no means enough to take the project through to its end and therefore the project is looking for all the support and donations it can get. No donation is too small. For this reason, part of the marketing campaign is to get people talking more about the project and spreading the word.

This is where the Goals for Girls: The Movie Facebook Fan Page comes in. This week, the Facebook Fan Page for Goals for Girls will be launched and the producers of the project are asking anyone out there, who is either a fan of soccer, a supporter of women’s rights or a lover of film, to become a fan of the page. In the meantime, you can click on the official website to get updates and donate today! http://www.goalsforgirlsthemovie.org

Goals for Girls makes The New York International Latino Film Festival (NYILFF)

by Tracey Chandler, contributing blogger

The “Goals for Girls” documentary  short, produced and directed by Ginger Gentile and Gabriel Balanovsky of San Telmo Productions in Buenos Aires, is proud to announce that it has entered into the official competition of  The New York International Latino Film Festival (NYILFF) which begins on July 27th and runs until August 1st 2010.

The NYILFF which has been running since 1999 is now the premier Urban Latino film event in the country. It will be the 5th International Festival in which “Goals for Girls” (Goles y Metas) has entered into official competition. The short film follows the struggle of a group of girls from a shantytown in Buenos Aires to play a sport that is off-limits to women in Argentina: Soccer.  To form a real team, they need to fight against the boys who won’t let them use the field and their parents who prefer that they wash the dishes.

“Goals for Girls” Documentary’s Protagonists Excited about Video Workshop

Yesterday’s film shoot for “Goals for Girls” turned out to be more exciting than expected. While the goal for the shoot was to just get footage of the girls playing at a tournament outside of the shantytown, one of the girls got injured during a game when a player from the challenging team kicked her in the foot (even though the girl didn’t have the ball at the time). Even though there was an apology, the game had to be suspended due to accusations flying around and the threat of a fist fight. One of the main challenges of the girls is to turn their anger–their anger at being poor and being discriminated against–into something positive.

On a brighter note, a few girls came up to me as I was filming and asked me about how the camera works. One girl, Laura, said that she loved to take photos but doesn’t have her own camera. I gave her a quick lesson on the difference between an object being in focus and being out of focus, and for the rest of the shoot she followed me, looking at the LCD as I filmed her teammates vent at the camera. We also talked to the girls about the video workshop we’ll be starting for them soon, and a lot of them are excited to participate.  Go to http://www.goalsforgirlsthemovie.org to find out how you can help make the workshop a reality by making a tax deductible donation or becoming a sponsor.

At the end of the shoot, a reporter for a local paper showed up and she asked the girls some questions for a story she is working on. Belen said that she believes boys will always play better than them, but not because they have more experience but because they are stronger and “rougher”. Old stereotypes die-hard.

“Goals for Girls” Documentary Mentioned in EH Star Newspaper

Sometimes its good to be the local girl . . . we’re kicking off our fundraising drive for our feature doc Goals for Girls and I just got this mention from my local hometown paper in East Hampton, NY. And I’m lucky that my hometown is filled with Hollywood insiders and one of the top festivals in the US (for the record, I’m a local and waited tables for the celebs, didn’t dine with them). My only complaint is that it makes me look far more like a saint than I am!

Here’s the first part, with a link to the end to the original:

Shining a Light on Poverty and Soccer
By Leigh Goodstein

(April 15, 2010)    G­­inger Gentile has always been an activist. From her beginnings as an overachiever in Catholic school in Southampton to her valedictorian speech at the East Hampton High School’s class

Photo: Emilliano Pozzoni Ginger Gentile has turned her camera on the plight of women soccer players in one of the largest slums in South America.

of 1998 graduation ceremony to her work with unions in Jakarta, Indonesia, she has always focused on what is wrong and tried to make it right, she said.

Ms. Gentile ended up in South America after traveling from New York City to Guatemala and Cuba on a mission to learn Spanish in order to work with unions for Hispanic garment workers in Manhattan. But she never returned to the city. More. . .

Goals for Girls Update: Chechu on the Sidelines

So we went to our first soccer practice of principal photography for  the feature documentary Goals for Girls, about a girls soccer team in the largest shantytown in Buenos Aires, the Villa 31. The team has grown dramatically since we started shooting in 2008! Now the field is filled with 25 girls from 13 to 21, kicking, passing, and yes, occasionally cursing! But one girl who is dying to play couldn’t. . . Chechu, who at 16 just became a mom.

Teenage Chechu watches soccer practice in the Shantytown with her newborn.

She was there at practice with her baby boy, Joaquin, in arms. We interviewed her about what it was like to spend 8 months on the sidelines as she was pregnant. . . for her, the pregnancy was a far bigger burden than motherhood, in part because now she can play soccer again and her son is very quiet. But today she was unable to practice because she was unable to get someone to watch her son. The father was going to, but had to work: “We’re broke”, she said.

So Chechu cheered from the sidelines. Neither her mother nor the father’s mother help much. While some volunteers who come to the practices can often look after older children, looking after a 4 month old is quite different.

After the practice we filmed the girls weekly meeting where they decided on a name for the team (finally!) which means “allies” in English and the colors of the team, which will be white and blue. The girls then talked about the importance of the anniversary of the military dictatorship which was celebrated the day before, and we interviewed a team member about her dreams to try out for the Boca Jrs women’s division, and how women face discrimination when they play soccer.All and all, a great start for our feature documentary!

“Goals For Girls” Feature Doc Filming off to Great Start

After spending almost a year getting the project off the ground, we’re finally ready to go back to the Villa 31 Shantytown in Buenos Aires to begin principal photography for our feature length documentary “Goals for Girls”. This time, we’re going to be shooting in HD and capturing the struggle of the girls to organize an inter-shantytown girls soccer championship!

Also, we’re getting the website to promote the project off the ground, re-editing the fundraising trailer, re-doing the budget. . . all those essential things that aren’t nearly as fun as filming and editing! (note to inspriring filmmakers: you will spend only 10% of your time filming).

But some great news, the short has been accepted to some great festivals in Spain, and one, the Festival of Extremadura, has invited us to come in person!

Stay tuned for more updates!