Women Are Heroes

Dynamically shot documentary by Paris-based photographer JR. Women Are Heroes pays a tribute to oppressed women from Brazil, India, Kenya and Cambodia, in order to give them an identity, both literally and figuratively.

Women Are Heroes starts off in Brazil. The camera swings through the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, and catches JR’s huge billboards of women telling how much they suffer from street violence. After that, the viewer is taken to Cambodia, where women protest against violent house expropriations using a matriarchal system. To the slums of Kenya, where mothers have to raise their children in the midst of chaos and instability, and finally to India, where women are torn apart between century-old traditions and modern-day society. JR zooms in on the gigantic billboards – some can even be seen on Google Earth – to stress these women’s significance and power, thus giving them the recognition they deserve and turning them into heroes.