Film Review: Category: Woman (2022)

Hot Docs 2022

Hot Docs runs April 28 - May 8, screening in Toronto and streaming Canada-wide.

Category: Woman

#whatonwhatsgood Express Review: Category: Woman (by: Jovin Tardif)

Do you think measuring testosterone levels is sketchy?

The International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) has been checking gender verification for years.

Category: Woman, directed by Phyllis Ellis discusses the hormone tests and the effects on athletes including Castor Semenya, Annette Negesa & Dutee Chan.

They also explained what happened when the athletes took their cases to the Court of Arbitration for Sports (CAS).

The film makes you wonder whether testosterone levels should qualify as a gender test. What are your thoughts?

Directed by 

Phyllis Ellis

Writing Credits

Phyllis Ellis

Produced by 

Phyllis Ellis, Howard Fraiberg, Jane Jankovic, and Cheryl Dillard Staurulakis

Music by 

Aaron Davis Tuku

Cinematography by 

Iris Ng

Film Editing by 

Eugene Weis

Director's Vision

I was inspired and deeply affected by this story far beyond that of a filmmaker. 

I had experienced many challenges as an Olympian, and as a woman in high performance sport, but I may have collapsed under the pressure these phenomenal athletes have endured.  

The devastation to their bodies, and their lives, but equally arresting was their passion and joy for sport, the dedication to their communities, families and country.

How could this have happened?

All of their personal medical records leaked to the international media.  The misinformation, public scrutiny, racism, sexism, the questioning of the most fundamental right of who they are and who they are told they should be.

This is a basic human right.

All of this to compete in their sport on the world stage, a coveted space where we are supposed to be protected.

We hoped to celebrate each woman while they tell us the truth of their experience. And to lens the film in a way that empowered, subverted the gaze and did not disembody the athlete from the human being.

I hope to provide an audience with enough context to understand, to feel what we felt, to but not be overwhelmed in explanation. To be vigilant and stand beside the women in this film, to step out of my lived experience as a white, filmmaker from the Global North so that we could too be there to support that human dignity must be afforded to all athletes and that this should never happen again.