Another way into the evening.
English introductions to all 35 works in our cultural catalogue, about desire, identity and relationships. These are introductions to works by other creators, separate from the fiction written for NUIT BRUTE.
Films
Portrait de la jeune fille en feu
Céline Sciamma
In 1770, Marianne is commissioned to paint Héloïse’s wedding portrait. Héloïse refuses to pose, so the painter pretends to be her companion and observes her in secret. Looking becomes the beginning of a love affair.
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Casa Susanna
Sébastien Lifshitz
In 1950s and 1960s America, a house in the Catskills gives a community a place to express feminine identity away from public scrutiny. This documentary returns to the traces of that refuge and to the people who remember it.
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À propos d’amour
bell hooks
bell hooks treats love as a practice that people build. This feminist essay examines the obstacles patriarchal norms place in the way of relationships, drawing on moral philosophy and psychology.
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Love Me Tender
Constance Debré
Flammarion presents Love Me Tender as a continuation of Play Boy. After identity, the focus moves towards the other person and towards love, including maternal love and other forms of attachment.
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Un podcast à soi
Charlotte Bienaimé · ARTE Radio
A French-language documentary series about gender, feminism and equality. Personal accounts and analysis bring intimate experiences into conversation with wider social questions.
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Le Cœur sur la table
Created by Victoire Tuaillon · Binge Audio
A French-language documentary series about romantic, friendly and family ties. It looks at how relationships are made and how they might change.
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Les Couilles sur la table
Created by Victoire Tuaillon
A French-language podcast about masculinities and how they are socially constructed. Its conversations examine masculine ideals and their place in gender relations.
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Réinventer l’amour
Mona Chollet
Mona Chollet examines how patriarchal norms shape heterosexual relationships, romantic expectations and representations of the couple.
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Au-delà de la pénétration
Martin Page
Martin Page questions the central place given to penetration and the gender norms associated with sexuality. The essay also includes personal accounts.
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Émotions
Louie Media
A French-language podcast that brings together personal accounts and specialists to explore emotions. Its subjects include love, desire and self-esteem.
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La Conversation des sexes
Manon Garcia
Subtitled Philosophie du consentement, Manon Garcia’s essay examines sexual consent, power relations and the conditions needed for equal relationships.
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Les sentiments du prince Charles
Liv Strömquist
Liv Strömquist’s graphic essay explores love and the roles assigned to women and men, bringing together cultural references, celebrity stories and social analysis.
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Les Invisibles
Sébastien Lifshitz
Gay women and men born between the two world wars recount their relationships and life paths in a society that rejected them. A documentary by Sébastien Lifshitz.
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Vivons heureux avant la fin du monde
Delphine Saltel
Delphine Saltel combines personal experiences, reporting and interviews to examine everyday choices in a society in crisis. Subjects range from relationships to ways of living.
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King Kong théorie
Virginie Despentes
Virginie Despentes writes about models of femininity, gender norms and the place given to people who do not fit them. Her essay adopts a personal, combative voice.
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Le couple et l’argent
Titiou Lecoq
Titiou Lecoq investigates economic inequalities between women and men and the ways life as a couple can deepen them. The book also addresses domestic work and attitudes towards money.
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A Secret Love
Chris Bolan
Two women kept their relationship hidden for decades. Chris Bolan’s documentary returns to their history and the difficulties of coming out later in life.
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Le génie lesbien
Alice Coffin
Alice Coffin brings her experience as a journalist and activist into an argument about lesbian visibility. She examines the media, power relations and the place given to women.
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Quouïr
Rozenn Le Carboulec
Rozenn Le Carboulec’s French-language series gives LGBTQI+ people space to tell their stories. Seasons address subjects including coming out, same-sex parenting and the effects of family rejection.
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Intime et Politique
Nouvelles Écoutes
Documentary series from Nouvelles Écoutes connect personal experiences with discrimination. Across different seasons, subjects include sexual violence, sex work, racism and gender stereotypes.
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Disclosure
Sam Feder
Trans artists and creators revisit representations of trans people in film and television. Sam Feder places their accounts alongside images from American popular culture.
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Les Vies de Thérèse
Sébastien Lifshitz
Sébastien Lifshitz films Thérèse Clerc, a feminist and lesbian activist, as she faces an incurable illness. She looks back on her commitments, struggles and loves.
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Camille
Camille Regache
Camille Regache starts with concrete questions, from gender on identity documents to insults and queer parenting, to examine norms of gender and sexuality. Interviews give guests time to develop their answers.
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Petite fille
Sébastien Lifshitz
Sébastien Lifshitz follows Sasha, a trans child, and her family in everyday life. The documentary shows their conversations, doubts and efforts to have Sasha recognised as a girl.
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La volonté de changer
bell hooks
bell hooks examines what masculine ideals do to men’s emotional lives. Intimacy, work and sexual expectations run through this feminist essay, published in French by Divergences in 2021 in Alex Taillard’s translation.
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Nos puissantes amitiés
Alice Raybaud
Living with friends, making a family or growing old together: Alice Raybaud investigates the place given to friendship. Interviews meet cultural references and social-science research to consider lives not organised solely around couples.
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Les Amours d’Anaïs
Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet
Anaïs is thirty, short of money and uncertain about her relationship. She meets Daniel, then grows close to Émilie, the woman he lives with. Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet’s film follows an attraction that unsettles those existing relationships.
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Fracas
Created by Charlotte Pudlowski
Created by Charlotte Pudlowski, Fracas explores what speaking up changes in a life. Its French-language archives combine interviews and documentary series, including Les petites phrases, about words people have never forgotten.
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Les règles de notre liberté
Rayka Zehtabchi
In rural India, women make sanitary pads and confront the taboo surrounding periods. Rayka Zehtabchi’s short documentary connects menstruation with living conditions and economic independence.
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Un appartement sur Uranus
Paul B. Preciado
Paul B. Preciado collects columns published in Libération, begun under the name Beatriz and continued as Paul. They describe a transformation through testosterone outside the medical and legal protocol, then turn to other struggles.
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120 battements par minute
Robin Campillo
Robin Campillo’s fictional film, co-written with Philippe Mangeot, follows Act Up-Paris activists in the early 1990s. Newcomer Nathan is struck by Sean’s radical commitment as Sean puts his remaining strength into action.
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La Poudre
Lauren Bastide
Lauren Bastide interviews writers, artists, researchers and activists. Beginning with an individual life, the French-language conversations move towards feminist and anti-racist struggles.
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Je suis un monstre qui vous parle
Paul B. Preciado
In November 2019, Paul B. Preciado addressed 3,500 psychoanalysts in Paris, drawing on Kafka’s A Report to an Academy. Grasset published the speech in June 2020 with the subtitle Rapport pour une académie de psychanalystes.
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Théo et Hugo dans le même bateau
Olivier Ducastel et Jacques Martineau
In Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau’s fictional film, Théo and Hugo meet in a sex club. After that first encounter, they walk through the empty streets of Paris at night and face the beginnings of a relationship.
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HOMOMICRO
Brahim Naït-Balk
HOMOMICRO is a French-language LGBTQI+ news and culture programme presented by Brahim Naït-Balk and contributors, associated with Fréquence Paris Plurielle and distributed through podcast platforms.
Read our introductionThe French profiles may include additional reviews and editorial material. Availability and language depend on the publisher or distributor.