Gaining Parity?

The women of France have worked in multiple roles of the film industry since its earliest days in the 1890s and 1900s, as they have around the world. But the role of director – often referred to as auteur since the 1950s when François Truffaut polemically promoted the term – eluded them in significant numbers until the 1970s, when feminist actions of the post-1968 period put women decisively on the film-making map. The campaign for parity of gender in numbers of directors now called the Collectif 50:50 is just one element of a picture that includes the rise to worldwide prominence of filmmakers like queer feminist Céline Sciamma, director of Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019), and the maker of 2023’s Cannes film festival Golden Palm winner Anatomy of a Fall Justine Triet. This lecture will trace the origins of contemporary Francophone women’s filmmaking in the turbulent 1990s, give an overview of some key films made by its leading practitioners of the early twenty-first century, and offer analyses of its principal themes and characteristics: 130 years after cinema began, what does Francophone women’s filmmaking, one of the world’s most thrilling and cutting-edge cinemas in the world, look like?

naugural lectures are a landmark in academic life, held on the appointment of new professorships. Join us to learn more about the work of Kate Ince.

Host or Publisher University of Birmingham