During the month of March, we celebrate both women and French language. As such, we have selected on VOD platform Mubi a variety of movies by women with women of different backgrounds who speak French with different accents. From Tunisia to Switzerland, discover a panorama of stunning portraits.
Manele Labidi
2019
A charming fish-out-of-water comedy, this debut feature places local cultural anxieties on the therapist’s couch. Starring an effortlessly charismatic Golshifteh Farahani, Arab Blues affectionately maps the social landscapes of post-revolution Tunisia with wit, warmth, and a keen eye for the absurd.
Amandine Gay
2017
Women of African descent converse about what it means to be a woman and Black today, whilst highlighting the diversity of Afropean diasporas and exploring the intersections of discrimination, art and blackness. By sharing their experiences, they speak up and take control of their own representation.
Ursula Meier
2012
Ursula Meier’s Sister is a film with secrets, one that quietly yet fiercely challenges the institution of the family by pushing the boundaries of on-screen filial relationships. An acute look at loneliness, dependence, and denial, with remarkable cinematography by Agnès Godard.
Agnès Varda
1981
After being left from her man, a young French woman tries to find lodging and a fresh start in L.A. for herself and her son. Voice-over narration expresses the woman’s thoughts and feelings while revealing her life as pointless, but there is some hope in her loving relationship with her son.
This self-proclaimed “emotion film” weaves a quiet fictional narrative with pure truth to build an engrossing portrait of a complex woman.
Delphine Seyrig
1976
In 1975 Delphine Seyrig recorded interviews with twenty-four actresses in France and the US, including Maria Schneider, Jane Fonda, and Shirley MacLaine, about their experience across the industry. Through their words, Seyrig reveals the frustrations of working within the patriarchal studio system.
Combative and essential, the rarely-seen interviews have an immediate, unpolished aesthetic that strips off the glamorous veneer of mainstream cinema, exposing the industry’s rampant sexism.