São Paulo – The Brazilian filmmaker Betty Martins is making arrangements for a Brazilian screening of her documentary film “I Wasn’t Always Dressed Like This.” The movie is about Muslim women who wear the veil and live in the United Kingdom, where the filmmaker lived until a month ago. In thirty minutes, the production tells the story of three women who have chosen to wear the veil. One of them is a French-born woman who converted to Islam.
The filmmaker is back to living in São Paulo indeterminately and plans on screening her documentary in Brazil starting in January. She is negotiating with cultural organizations to hold sessions of the film followed by debates.
Martins has created her own filmic methodology. Instead of directly inquiring women as to why they have chosen to wear the veil, she tells their stories instead. “Otherwise, I would be merely publicizing my own discourse,” says the Brazilian filmmaker about what would have happened had she asked straight questions. “One of my reasons for making the film was the fact that I had heard a lot of hearsay about them, and yet I had never heard them speak,” she says.
Martins had the idea for the documentary while working for the British Museum, which held an exhibit about the Hajj, i.e. the pilgrimage Muslims make to the holy city of Mecca. She had heard much about the women who don the veil, even on the Brazilian media, and asked herself why they wore it in the United Kingdom, where they weren’t obliged to do so.
This scenario, combined with the emergence of strong female Muslim leaders on TV channels prompted her to study the subject. And she heard accounts from a friend who had lived in Palestine. “I started considering making a documentary and came to the conclusion it would be worthwhile.” It took me a year to complete, which I did halfway through this year. When questioned as to why these women wear the veil, she says there is no single answer. “They are women who are experimenting just like any other,” she says.
Martins made a point of having her work scrutinized by different types of specialists, including Muslim feminists and scholars, and of respecting the domestic realities of each of the women she met to film and talk. In the United Kingdom, the CommunityChannel is going to air the documentary for three years and distribute it. An agreement has been reached with a distributing company in North America, and the filmmaker is in talks with a distributor in Brazil.
Martins returned to Brazil in order to make her next film. She lived in London for nine years. Prior to moving there, however, she studied Fine Arts at Centro Universitário Belas Artes, in São Paulo, and completed a specialization in Philosophy at the Federal University of Ouro Preto (Ufop). In London, she completed a specialization in Arts Management at the Birbeck University of London and a master’s degree in Culture and Media Studies at the London South Bank University.
In London, Betty Martins founded her own organization, D-AEP.org, focusing on art and education projects. The organization has carried out several art projects at United Kingdom schools. She discovered the world of documentaries while working on a project about Mexican immigrants in London for the British Museum, where she used to work. Then she made another, for the Wellcome Trust foundation, about how Mexicans celebrate the Day of the Dead. The piece on Muslim women is her third film.
Watch the trailer below:
http://www.d-aep.org/portfolio/i-wasn%C2%B4t-always-dressed-like-this/
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
