Screenings from a French feminist collective in Nicosia

Les Insoumuses, meaning the Defiant Muses, is a feminist video collective from the Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir. The women’s collective consisted of Carole Roussopoulos, Delphine Seyrig, and Ioana Wieder and produced videos on the struggles of women in the 1970s. This May, the Agios Omologites Cultural Workshop is presenting some of the work in a series of screenings.

Organised with the support of the Cultural Services of the ministry of education, and in collaboration with the French Institute of Cyprus, the screenings in French will run on May 11, 13 and 18. All for free and with subtitles in English.

The first screening on Wednesday 11 at 8pm is of the film Be Pretty and Shut Up where director Delphine Seyrig interviews 24 French and US actresses about their professional experiences as women, their roles and their relationships with directors. It presents a sobering assessment of an industry that only awards parts to women based on clichés and stereotypes.

May 13’s screening will take place at the French Institute of Cyprus at 7.30pm presenting Maso and Miso Go Boating. Co-directed by Carole Roussopoulos, Delphine Seyrig, Ioana Wieder and Nadja Ringart the documentary focuses on 1975 that was declared ‘year of the woman’. On this occasion, Bernard Pivot invited Françoise Giroud, then Secretary of State for Women, on his popular TV show and this documentary, shows a parody of the show’s misogyny in a provocative way.

The following screening is again situated in 1975 but this time shines the light on Cyprus. The Women’s Return March to Cyprus depicts the events that took place when with the support of delegations of women from all around the world, Cypriot women marched peacefully to try to obtain the application of the United Nations resolution, ordering refugees to return home. This screening on May 18 will take place at the Agios Omoligites Cultural Workshop and is the one only to have subtitles in Greek.

Three more screenings will happen on the evening of May 18, continuing with the Just Don’t Fuck documentary on the state of the practice of abortion in France in the 1970s, before its legalisation. In The Prostitutes of Lyon Speak documentary, director Carole Roussoupoulos shows the prostitutes that occupied the Saint-Nizier Church in Lyon in 1975 as they talk about their personal lives, their relationship with society, their working conditions and their demands.

The last screening of the series is titled S.C.U.M. Manifesto 1967 which stands for Society for Cutting Up Men. The film is a staged reading of Valerie Solanas’ book, S.C.U.M. Manifesto against a background of television news bulletins and is an indictment of a society dominated by ‘male’ images of ‘virile’ action.

Les Insoumuses

A retrospective of the videos of the feminist video collective, Les Insoumuses from the Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir. May 11 and 18. Agioi Omoligites Cultural Workshop, Nicosia. 8pm. May 13. French Institute of Cyprus, Nicosia. 7.30pm. In French with subtitles in English. Free. Tel: 22-256782. www.politistiko-ergastiri.org