Screening and discussion
Ioana Wieder, une muse… Insoumuse
14 Sep 2022
14 Sep 2022
The event is over
Under the banner of sisterhood with American feminists, this session offers a look back at the life of filmmaker, translator and feminist Ioana Wieder, in connection with the exhibition “Où est-ce qu’on se mai ? Militant video from the 1970s in France”. .
In conversation with researcher Hélène Fleckinger, surrounded by portraits of writers, poets and feminists, Ioana Wider tells the little-known story of the group Les Muses s’amusent, created in Paris in 1974 in the wake of a number of feminist video collectives, such as Vidéa, which served as legal support for the Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir in 1982. Founded in association with childhood friend and actress Delphine Seyrig, Josée Constantin, Claire Delpech, Monique Duriez and Claude Jourde, Les Muses s’amusent defined itself as a “group of women determined to denounce the image and stereotyped role of women conveyed by the media, and to respond to it though audiovisual productions (video productions, photographs, sound montages for slides, tapes)”. From 1976, the neologism “Les Insoumuses” was used to sign tapes produced by Carole Roussopoulos in collaboration with Les Muses s’amusent.
Using video extracts, visual documents and written archives, the session will also present and discuss Ioana Wider’s solo productions and those of her fellow group members.
Ioana Wider
Fleeing the Nazi occupation of Romania, Ioana Wieder moved at an early age to Palestine, then Lebanon, where she befriended Delphine Seyrig. After high school, she studied Philosophy in Paris. In 1959, she moved to the USA and became involved in the Free Speech Movement. Back in France in 1968, Ioana Wieder taught in a bilingual school. She discovered the wealth of theory developed by US feminists and translated some emblematic works into French, such as Vaginal Politics (1972) by Ellen Frankfort. She participated in the French Women’s Liberation Movement (MLF) from its inception and was involved in awareness-raising groups in the sphere of self-help.
Hélène Fleckinger
Cinema and video historian Hélène Fleckinger is a lecturer at University of Paris 8 Vincennes – Saint-Denis, currently part of the CNRS delegation at UMR LEGS (Laboratory for Gender and Sexuality Studies). Having written a thesis on the relationship between cinema, video and feminism (France, 1968-1981), she is a specialist in militant film practices, the uses of lightweight videos, and questions of gender, at the intersection of social, political, technical, aesthetic and cultural issues. In collaboration with Nadja Ringart, Hélène Fleckinger coordinates the editorial platform “Bobines féministes” inspired by the memory of the MLF.
Where
Cinema 2, level –1
When
14 Sep 2022
Ioana Wieder lors d’une réunion du groupe Les Muses s’amusent en 1974.
© Monique Duriez.