filmer en femme / filming as a woman

Museum of Contemporary Art – Film and Video Programme

What is Film? Agnès Varda

“Because we women are supposed all the same! Nuisances, frivolous, gossips, bitches, sluts, etc!”

Quote from Réponses de Femmes, Agnès Varda, 1975

“One million women in France have abortions every year. Condemned to secrecy, they do so in dangerous conditions, while under medical supervision, this is one of the simplest procedures. Society is silencing these millions of women. I declare that I am one of them. I declare that I have had an abortion. Just as we demand free access to contraception, we demand the freedom to have an abortion.”

Manifesto of the 343 Sluts, Le Nouvel Observateur, April 5th, 1971.

Thirteen years before making Réponses de Femmes and nine years before signing the Manifesto of the 343 Sluts, Agnès Varda made Cléo from 5 to 7.

For all the bodies of all ages and backgrounds, walking side by side to oppose unjust states, societies, places, and spaces, this year the film programme of Firstborn Girl Festival of Feminist Culture & Action is devoted to Agnès Varda.

Curated by: Kumjana Novakova

09. May 2019, 20h00, Cinema Frosina

Cleo from 5 to 7 (Cléo de 5 à 7)

Director Agnès Varda (France, 1962, 90′)

Cast: Corinne Marchand, Antoine Bourseiller, Dominique Davray, Dorothée Blanck, Michel Legrand

The film is part of the Festival of Feminist Culture & Action “Firstborn Girl” organized in collaboration with the European Film Festival Cinedays.

The story of the young singer Cléo starts at 5 pm in the morning. While waiting for her X-ray results she is suddenly faced with the prospect of her death. In this in-between period, she meets her lover, a pianist, a friend, and a soldier. Walking through Paris, little by little, she opens her eyes on the world.

Agnès Varda the pioneering member of the Left Bank, was endlessly curious filmmaker whose interest in the margins of society and female subjectivity, together with her vocational background in photography, resulted in one of the most playful and fiercely political bodies of work in the film history. The Grand Mother of the French New Wave has received among other awards and nominations, a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, an honorary Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and an honorary Oscar.

What is Film? is a regular programme of the Museum of Contemporary Art presenting series of screenings and talks of outstanding audiovisual works, defining the broad palette of the art of film in all of its contemporary spectrum.

’What is Film? is curated by Kumjana Novakova.