The Woman Rural Worker in Marlene França's Mulheres da Terra (1985)

Abstract

Considering the political context and the cinematographic representations of working women in the 1980s in Brazil, this article aims to analyze the figure of the rural worker in the documentary Mulheres da Terra (Women of the Land, 1985), directed by Marlene França. Made at a time when the agrarian reform debate was regaining momentum and rural women's movements were reorganizing, the film pays homage to and encourages the political articulation of the "boias-frias" in the struggle for land ownership, while at the same time denouncing both the precarious working conditions in the sugarcane field and those that are presented as specific to working women. The result is a sensitive and complex portrait of the “boias-frias" as a revolutionary collective, intertwining class, gender and political resistance.