CONTEXT & CHALLENGE
For International Women's Day 2025, Avanti, Palmeiras' membership program, wanted to go beyond a tribute. Football's picture of the passionate fan is still male, and the idea was to confront that picture, not just to celebrate women fans.
INSIGHT
Show a lit flare, hands on a bass drum, a scream in the stands. Without showing the face, almost everyone will picture a man.
CONCEPT
Torça como uma palestrina (Cheer like a palestrina, as women Palmeiras fans are called, after the club's Palestra Italia roots). Two pieces with the same mechanic: hide in order to reveal.
THE EXPERIMENT
We set up a stall on the street, in front of Palmeiras, with an illustrator and a tablet. Participants saw cropped scenes from the stands, such as eyes, hands, the flare and the drum section, and described how they pictured that fan. The illustrator drew live. The portraits came out, almost always, as men.
Then we revealed the full scenes: they were all women.
If you expected to see a man showing all this passion for Palmeiras, it means you don't know the palestrinas.
THE MINI DOC
Three women fans tell the story of their relationship with the club: Palmeiras as a symbol that unites, the faith that comes with every match, the prejudice of being a woman in the stadium and the team as support in hard times. To film it, they took over the club's trophy room. The film closes with their own definition:
To cheer like a palestrina is to cheer with your whole essence.
