International news organization Reuters shed light Monday on Egyptian documentary film "Lift Like A Girl" that has won acclaim at international film festivals in recent months.
The documentary depicts one of the marginalized sports in Egypt which is weightlifting. It revolves around four years in the life of Zebiba, a girl from Alexandria who started training at Captain Ramadan’s camp when she was nine, and follows her transformation into a fierce, medal-winning competitor.
It featured the Captain’s own daughter, Nahla Ramadan, a former world weightlifting champion and Olympic athlete, and Abeer Abdel Rahman, the first Arab woman to win two Olympic weightlifting medals.
The documentary also inspired Egyptian filmmaker Mayye Zayed to spotlight women’s success in the male-dominated sport in “Lift Like a Girl”.
Zayed expressed her hopes to the Thomson Reuters Foundation that her film would raise awareness about weightlifting among women and girls, and encourage more to follow their dreams - even if that means challenging gender stereotypes in socially conservative countries like Egypt.
She added that usually the term "lift like a girl" has a negative meaning, but the documentary is bringing a whole new meaning to the term, an empowering meaning aimed at inspiring current and future generations.
Zayed noted that women usually do much better than men in weightlifting, but they are not given enough support, adding many women give up on their passion for the sport because they cannot afford it, or because of societal and family pressures for them to marry and have children.
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