Screening as part of Revolt, She Said: Women and Film after '68
Dir. Mai Zetterling | Sweden 1968 | 100 mins | subtitles | 15
No less a luminary than Simone de Beauvoir called Mai Zetterling’s riotous feature ‘the best movie ever made by a woman,’ and Swedes voted it into their top 20. Three female friends (played by Bergman regulars) tour a production of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata as the spirit of ’68 sweeps Sweden. Life imitates art (imitating life in Bergman’s rep company?) as the sex wars spill off the stage into confrontations with the audience – and husbands back home. Will the girls win this time?
One hundred years after the first women got the vote in the UK, 50 years after the protests of May ’68 triggered resistance across the world, where is the feminist revolution now? ICO x Club des Femmes curate a season of films and happenings focused on women filmmakers post ’68, who took up cameras as they took to the streets: to instigate further revolutions in ways of seeing, being, living and loving.
Accompanying short film | Hairpiece: A Film for Nappy Headed People
Dir. Ayoka Chenzira | USA 1982 | 10 mins
Ayoka Chenzira’s gorgeous animation listens in on African-American women talking about the impossible ideals of hair care. Witty, satirical and still bitingly relevant.