Passion Imperfect: On Danielle Arbid’s Simple Passion
Midway through Simple Passion (2020) the protagonist, Hélène, played with studied poise by Laetitia Dosch, announces to her lover, “I…
France
A Language of Traces: The short films of Mati Diop
“My characters rarely find themselves where they want to be in the world: there is always somewhere to escape from,…
Another Gaze presents: The Legacies of Sarah Maldoror (1929–2020) —12 May 2020
Sign up to the eventbrite for updates and Zoom link here. On 13 April, the political activist, theatre maker and…
Those Who Keep and Those Who Throw Away: On Hoarding in ‘Grey Gardens’, ‘The Gleaners and I’ and ‘Tidying Up With Marie Kondo’
“That’s all I need: an ordered life” —Edith ‘Little Edie’ Bouvier Beale, Grey Gardens Early last year, I experienced my…
‘Olivia’ by Olivia
Midway through Olivia, headmistress Mlle Julie (Edwige Feuillère), going to bed, notices light under the door of one of her…
The Great Digestive Machine: Inside the Choreography of Loie Fuller and the Underwater Cinema of Geneviève Hamon and Jean Painlevé
If the afterlife exists, I’ve always imagined that I’d like mine to be underwater. I’d be reborn as something with…
A Woman Escaped? The Female Automaton in Robert Bresson’s ‘Mouchette’
The first android was a woman. In Auguste Villiers de L’Isle-Adam’s novel L’Ève Future (1886), a fictionalised Thomas Edison attempts…
The Impossible Profession: On Justine Triet’s ‘Sibyl’
In Promises, Promises, Adam Phillips writes, “When people need a new question to ask of themselves, then it may be…
The 57th New York Film Festival: Looking Towards Convergences in a Cluster of Films
Having just seen Alla Kovgan’s documentary about the monolithic figurehead of modern dance, Merce Cunningham, it is now my job…
Mati Diop’s ‘Atlantique’ (‘Atlantics’) turns to the women left behind
In Mati Diop’s short film Atlantiques (2009), three young Senegalese men sit around a bonfire in Dakar at night, one…
Céline Sciamma’s ‘Portrait de la jeune fille en feu’ (‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’) explores the boundlessness of poetic love
“Do all lovers feel like they’re making things up?” one woman asks another in Céline Sciamma’s Portrait de la jeune…
The Woman Everyone Knows: In Conversation With Aminatou Echard
In her most recent film, French filmmaker Aminatou Echard takes up the eponymous heroine of Jamilia, the 1958 novel by…
Aude Léa Rapin’s ‘Les héros ne meurent jamais’ (‘Heroes don’t die’) takes on the ethics of the documentary film – Cannes
Aude Léa Rapin’s Les héros ne meurent jamais (Heroes don’t die) begins with Joachim (Jonathan Couzinié), a thin, bearded young…
No other voice: Claire Denis’s ‘High Life’
Claire Denis’s latest film, High Life, opens with an exchange of voices: the cry of a baby, Willow, and the…
Rebecca Zlotowski’s ‘Une fille facile’ (‘An Easy Girl’) takes on the cliché of the woman of leisure – Cannes
Rebecca Zlotowski’s Une fille facile (An Easy Girl) opens with a contradiction. A quotation from 17th-century mathematician and philosopher Blaise…
Zabou Breitman and Eléa Gobbé Mévellec’s ‘The Swallows of Kabul’ (‘Les Hirondelles de Kaboul’) Takes a Rosy Look at Female Sacrifice – Cannes
In their adaption of Yasmina Kadra’s novel The Swallows of Kabul (2002), director/actress Zabou Breitman and animator Eléa Gobbé Mévellec…
After Agnès Varda: A Discussion
Following Agnès Varda’s death and inspired by the importance of collaboration in Varda’s work, we asked eight writers, programmers and…
Two people in a house: Catherine Corsini’s ‘An Impossible Love’ (‘Un amour impossible’)
The poster for An Impossible Love shows a man with his back turned, eyes averted, hands in pockets. He’s facing…
Of Marceline Loridan-Ivens
In 2003 I saw a film that absolutely knocked me out with its incomparable visual beauty, its exploration of traumatic…
Ordinary Devotion: The Seduction of Normalcy in Chantal Akerman’s ‘No Home Movie’
Chantal Akerman’s final film, No Home Movie, opens with an image of a tree in the Israeli desert, being buffeted…
From Object to Subject? Léonor Serraille’s ‘Jeune Femme’ and Agnès Varda’s ‘Vagabond’
The ‘free’ woman walking the city has become something of a popular myth, particularly in recent works of biblio-memoir, or…