New documentary Jacqueline van Vugt about first lingerie store in northern Iraq
Up to G-Cup’ has been selected for the Golden Calf Competition 2021 and tells intimate stories of women whose lives are dominated by war, religion, men and mothers
On Wednesday September 29 the documentary ‘Up to G-Cup’ by director Jacqueline van Vugt will premiere at the Nederlands Film Festival. The film was shot in Iraqi Kurdistan’s first lingerie store, which opened in 2015. From the fitting room, women of different generations tell about their struggles with love, studying, sexual freedom and shame in a country ravaged by war and oppression. The film has been selected for the Golden Calf Competition 2021 in the category ‘Long Documentary’.
Big stories from a small lingerie shop
The film shows that the store is a place where women come together and while changing clothes also reveal themselves about their life stories. Central themes in the documentary are self-determination, sensitivity, sensuality and sexuality.
Van Vugt: “With the film I want to sketch a portrait of women whose lives are not only dominated by war and religion, but also by men, mothers and even their daughters. I want to portray the shame and the curtailed sexual freedom, but also the fear and worry about the hymen and female circumcision. There is no room for the individual. I want to show how my main characters in Kurdistan try to find their way within family and social constraints. I want to show these themes in a war-torn country by telling the stories of real people in this small, groundbreaking store.”
About Jacqueline van Vugt
Jacqueline van Vugt grew up in West Africa. In rural Mali she learned to look in the broadest sense of the word. From Delft University of Technology, where she studied architecture, and the Director of Photography course at the NFTA, she developed into a director, writer and producer of documentaries and feature films. In 1995 she filmed Snow White for director Jelka Anhalt. The film won the Tuschinski Award. In the same year Jacqueline produced and directed the documentary KPL 70-11-12, which was acquired by the VPRO. In 1998, her film Ofrenda de Primavera was nominated for a Golden Calf. The documentary Two Loves won a Dutch Academy Award and the short feature Morgen won the prize for best short film at the Mannheim-Heidelberg festival. The music documentary Mama don’t like no guitarpickers ’round here, was released by Cinema Delicatessen, and sold to the NTR (Uur van de Wolf). With the film Borders, van Vugt won a Fipresci Award -International Film Press-, a SIMA Award and the film was nominated for the CIVIS Prize in Brussels. Interhuman drama in relation to world politics is a red line in her work, captured in a poetic narrative. Click here for more information.
