Speed Sisters review – women race against prejudice in the occupied territories

Amber Fares’s rubber-burning documentary follows an all-female Palestinian motor racing team (the first) as they compete with and against each other in wheel-spinning time-trials. “It’s like we put the pepper on the food,” one petrolhead explains. “The race without girls – it’s no fun.” Social conventions are overturned (one internet troll describes the women’s success as a sign of the apocalypse) as the Speed Sisters carve out their own space in occupied territory. But things take a turn for the dramatic when Israeli soldiers take aim at the women en route to a training session, and alarming injuries are sustained on-camera. There’s some nail-biting internecine tension as a climactic race result goes down to the wire, but the overall tone is celebratory and affirmative.