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RAI FILM Festival takes place on 27-30 March 2025. Learn more.

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Gaea Girls

Directed by Jano Williams, Kim Longinotto

2000 – 106'

Synopsis

A film about courage, transformation and dreams in the extraordinary world of Japanese women’s wrestling. Gaea Girls focuses on the hopes and fears of the beleaguered Gaea Japan squad, whose reputation hangs by a thread after a series of setbacks in the ring. There is the spindly 16-year old who spent three years persuading her parents to let her join, the new recruit who ran away but has returned begging for a second chance, and the rookie desperate to make her debut in the ring. At the centre of the film is the tough but popular trainer who – with her own very particular philosophy and personal history – rules the girls, trying to fashion them in her own image.

RAI FILM Festival 2025

The next RAI FILM Festival will take place in person from 27-30 March 2025 at the Watershed Cinema and the Arnolfini International Centre for Contemporary Arts in Bristol (UK) and online throughout the month of April 2025.