Delphine Seyrig

One year after the death of Simone de Beauvoir (14 april 1986) Delphine Seyrig pays homage by visiting her grave. which she finds still covered with flowers and letters from all over the world.

The film is a series of interviews with various well-known film actresses, including Jenny Agutter, Maria Schneider, and Jane Fonda. The title, which is borrowed from a 1958 film with the same name by Marc Allegret, refers to the sense the actresses have of what is expected of them by the film industry.

In two parts, it documents the litigation of Brigitte Fontaine, Monique Piton, Mireille and Erin Pizzey with Éditions de femmes in 1976 and those of Catherine Leguay and Brigitte Fontaine in 1977.

The year 1975 is declared “year of the woman”. On this occasion Bernard Pivot invited Françoise Giroud on television, then Secretary of State for Women. Faced with statements, a group of women filmmakers parody the issues in a provocative way.

Delphine Seyrig reads passages from a Valerie Solanas’s SCUM manifesto.

Documentary about feminist protests on the 1st of May of 1976

Inês Etienne Romeu was an opponent to the Brazilian's dictatorship. She was kidnapped, tortured and raped in jail, where she stayed for almost 100 days. She was later sentenced to life imprisonment. She stayed ten years in prison, from 1971 to 1979. Delphine Seyrig directed this film in 1974, when Inês was still in prison, protesting against this imprisonment and in support to Inês.

Images from “La nuit des femmes”, an evening in support of the three Portuguese writers, Maria Isabel Barreno, Maria Teresa Horta and Maria Velho da Costa, who, for having published in 1972 the “Novas Cartas Portuguesas”, a collective work bringing together texts denouncing the alienating and patriarchal Portuguese society, were brought to justice and risked 2 to 5 years in prison for insulting good morals.