COPA 71 + Q&A

We're delighted to welcome the team behind Copa 71 to our cinemas for a Q&A screening. Joining us at Picturehouse at FACT and Duke's at Komedia will be co-director Rachel Ramsay, and joining us at Harbour Lights Picturehouse will be Louise Gardener, one of the original '71 players.

It is August 1971. Football teams from England, Argentina, Mexico, France, Denmark and Italy are gathering at Mexico City’s sun-drenched Azteca Stadium. The scale of the tournament is monumental: lavish sponsorship, extensive TV coverage, merchandise on every street corner and crowds of over 100,000 hollering fans turn this historic stadium into ‘a cauldron of noise and heat’ match after match. A fawning media treat the players like rock stars. The atmosphere is reminiscent of the greatest moments in international footballing history.

But this is a tournament unlike anything that’s happened before. The players on the pitch are all women. And it’s likely you’ve never even heard of it. This is Copa 71, the unofficial Women’s World Cup. Dismissed by both FIFA and domestic football associations around the world, this event has been entirely written out of history. Until now.