Director Lamata and the Bechdel Test

I'm sure I've written about Bechdel Test devised by a feminist cartoonist over twenty years ago.  A movie passes the test if there are two named female characters in a movie who talk to each other and not about a man.  You would be stunned at how many movies do NOT pass the Bechdel Test.

Today we went to our last SIFF movie this afternoon.  Footbalisimo, a Spanish family film about soccer.  Well done, produced, some strong characters, funny, like many other kids sports movie that you've seen, the underdog team of misfits win in the end.  But it barely BARELY passed the Bechdel Test.  The director, Miguel Angel Lamata was at the showing (pictured above) was there for a Q&A.  Often we avoid these because, because, they're just frustrating.  Keep in mind that all of the movies we've seen have been at Shoreline.  The volunteers started to recognize us; we want SIFF to continue the Shoreline Community College venue.  So we stayed.  He was up there, funny disarming, with one of the SIFF programmers (who select the movies).  I was the last person to ask a question.  I briefly explained about the Bechdel test and how the movie had practically not passed it.  What did he think about that?  And clearly, neither the director or the programmer understood what I meant AT ALL.  They did not get it.  The director, ok he's from Spain but the programmer?  They mumbled and said that it was important to have women characters in the movie.  But did the female characters ever talk to each other?  They didn't know.  Why was that important?

Think about it, next time you watch a movie or TV show.  Do the female characters talk to each other or just to male characters?  Two other SIFF moview we saw, Celeste Garcia and All About Me definitely did pass the Bechdel test.