Films for your next evening.
Fiction and documentary offer different ways of looking at desire, identity and the images people make of one another.
11 works from our cultural catalogue, introduced in English. Follow each profile for context and its official source.
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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