Listen to Grit & Glitter’s interview with “Luchadoras” director Paola Calvo.
One element in striving to become a professional wrestler is the desire to become an idealized version of one’s self. As the past several decades have torn down walls of secrecy once obscuring this potentially rockstar-like path, training in the art of pro wrestling has been made more widely accessible to those with the passion to learn the craft and take the bumps. With beautifully place-setting photography Paola Calvo and Patrick Jasim frame their feature documentary “Luchadoras” in a country rich with lucha libre history, just south of the El Paso border in Juárez, Mexico, though their subject is less influenced by tradition than self-preservation.