Educational Media Reviews Online

Up to a G-Cup is a documentary that takes place primarily in the first lingerie shop in northern Iraq. While there are conversations with customers and Shapol, the shop’s owner, it is not a documentary with voiceovers and talking heads, or one with an argument and a point to prove. Up to a G-Cup is instead a slice of life sort of film. Director Jacqueline van Vugt films these women who visit the store and share their stores with Shapol and Hind (an employee), occasionally diving deeper into their lives outside of their shopping trips.

These women discuss hardships, such as female circumcision, war, death of partners, and normalized violence against women with frankness and openness; these are the lives they lead, these are the difficulties they encounter. This film spends very little time with men, giving its subjects the time to talk with each other, and to have conversations that may not occur when people of another gender are present. There is vitality in these women, sometimes hidden beneath the mask they wear for society, and this is mirrored in the undergarments they choose for themselves, bras that make them feel powerful and good and strong.

This documentary does not frame these women as “needing to be saved” from their lives or their religion, nor should it. The culture and experience of these Kurdish women are treated with respect and understanding, and the viewing audience is given a valuable and unblemished look at their lives.

Up to a G-Cup is a beautifully shot film that moves through the world of Iraqi women through the lens of those who come to a lingerie shop. The film is primarily in Kurdish with English subtitles.

Awards:
Dutch Film Festival, KNF Award

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