27 Jan Luísa Sobral presents “Serei Sempre uma Mulher”
“Serei Sempre uma Mulher” (I will always be a woman) is one of the songs that make up ‘DanSando’, Luísa Sobral’s new album. After “Gosto de Ti”, the singer-songwriter chose this as the second single from the album, idealizing a video that intends to portray many of the injustices and violence to which women are exposed without ever giving up their strength.
Luísa Sobral contextualizes the importance of this song for her:
“I always thought there was only one direction on the road to gender and racial equality, forward. For me it would be unthinkable that women could lose the right to vote or that public transportation would be divided into black and white zones. The world, I thought, was not yet egalitarian but it was moving in that direction, even if sometimes with short and slow steps and at different paces in different parts of the world.
It was then that we saw a frightening setback in women’s rights in Afghanistan. They lost the right to education, they lost the freedom to choose to cover their heads or not, and they could no longer walk down the street alone. Once again the veil of invisibility fell over Afghan women.
It was with these women in mind that I wrote this song, not knowing that a few months later Mahsa Amini, an Iranian woman whose life was taken away from her for wearing the hijab inappropriately, would die. On that day my song became about her too and about all those who wanted to avenge her death with protests, many of them losing their lives in doing so.
This is my way of protesting, for Mahsa, for Iranian and Afghan women, and for all women who in their lives and professions feel inferior. Because I still believe that the way is forward, even if sometimes you take two steps back.”
“Serei Sempre uma Mulher” was directed by Filipe C. Monteiro and written by both Filipe C. Monteiro and Luísa Sobral.