FutuRéale Magazine

Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival is North America's largest documentary festival. Each year, the festival presents a selection of more than 100 cutting-edge documentaries from Canada and around the globe. Through its industry programmes, the Festival also provides a full range of professional development, market and networking opportunities for documentary professionals.

Victoire Terminus
Screening: Rom Friday, April 18th at 9:45 pm, and Sunday, April 20th at 4:30 pm
Reviewed By: Julia Pronin

In Victoire Terminus, French film makers Renaud Barret and Florent De La Tullaye have joined together the multi-dimensional issues of women and athletics in Congo. This documentary is one of empowerment. Boxing is no longer a scapegoat that is reserved for men. Home to Muhammad Ali and George Forman, the stadium in Kinshasa is now a place of refuge for female-boxers in training, whose only hope in life is the boxing rink.

This documentary features both Congolese culture and the lives of Congolese women. The film documentary begins with Congolese music and dancing and scenes of Congolese streets. The streets are overwhelmingly congested with political marketing, highlighting the political unrest of the state. The political turmoil of Congo is juxtaposed with the energy of the Congolese people through song and dance.

The remainder of the film takes you deep into the lives of women who are training to be professional boxers. These women are trained by feminist male trainers, who emphasize the need for these women to work harder, only because it takes a lot more effort on their part to make it even as close as men are able to make it in professional boxing. The trainers also urge the women to focus on their training, and to avoid any romantic entanglements with men, fearing that men will steer them away from their path. Many scenes within the film feature conversations between female boxers about their desire to have both love lives, and careers in boxing, and their fear of ending up with neither. The belief that young women should not be distracted by men is something that is universal to all cultures. Even though many of the themes in the film are particular to Congolese women, the ideas behind them span beyond borders.

In other scenes of Victoire Terminus, you get a glimpse of the pollution of Congo, and the poverty which imprisons everyone, but women in particular. Whereas men are able to find some form of physical jobs, but women can seldom pursue any type of job.

Later in the documentary, the film takes you into a life with thugs and militant regimes. It also bring up the issue of a system of politics in which choosing for a leader does not actually exist, because all candidates support militant, totalitarian regimes that don't take the people into consideration.

When it comes to the boxing element of the film, the scenes are filmed in a way that portrays the women as both graceful and strong. It highlights the duality of femininity; an interplay between strength, determination, and elegance. In the film, the women box as though they are gliding through the rink, and at the same time, punching their way into their future, towards freedom.

Victoire Terminus is a film which brings to light the way in which women are left last when it comes to the social development of a state, leaving them little opportunities.