Filming Desire:
A Journey Through Women's Film
France | 2000 | 60 minutes | Color | DVD | Subtitled | Order No. 02761
SYNOPSIS
Powerfully illustrated with film clips from their own work, the directors discuss the reality of an explicit women’s point of view, the possibility of a women’s cinematic language, and the desire in their films to ‘fantasize and dream a new image of themselves’. While discussing how their depictions of sexuality and relationships are correctives, they also reflect on the sexual differences in selection of image, shot, and story. The film also provides a virtual anthology of the debates about the body, sexuality, power, and passion one sees in contemporary feminist and film theory: the body in representation and image; as a subject of censorship; as the vehicle of desire and love; as the contested ground of cinematic production; and as part of women’s identity and voice.
Explicit, funny and beautifully edited, FILMING DESIRE weaves an intriguing essay that is international in scope and reflective of the great diversity of women filmmakers. Essential viewing for classes in women’s studies, film studies, sexuality, body image, and feminist theory.” – Joseph Boles, Visiting Scholar, Center for Visual Culture, Bryn Mawr
PRESS
"For its historical value and insightful retrospective of how female filmmakers have dealt with desire... and for the exquisite pleasure of seeing ‘how beautiful it is to make (female) bodies speak (dixit Cavani)’.”
SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS
- Montreal World Film Festival
- Films des Femmes, Creteil, France
- Durban International Film Festival
- Boston International Women's Film Festival
- Seoul Women's Film Festival
- Women with Vision Film Festival, MN
- Women in Cinema, WA
- Women's Film Festival, VT
- Cinema Paradise Film Festival
- Manchester Film Festival
- Halfway to Hollywood Film Festival
ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)
Belgian born director Marie Mandy was born in Leuven in 1961. She grew up in Africa and the United States, and received a Bachelor’s degree in Roman Philology from the University of Louvain. In 1988 she graduated from the London International Film School, thanks to grants from the Belgian Vocational Foundation and a scholarship from the International Rotary Foundation. She completed her training with Delia Salvi (Actor’s Studio), Jiri Menzel and Krzysztof Kieslowski (Directing) and took a certificate from EAVE in 1992.
In 1989 she created her own production company in Brussels called Amazone Films, with which she produced and directed "Judith" (short, 1989), "Pardon Cupidon" (feature, 1992), and "Madeleine in Heaven" (documentary, 1999). She has since directed several documentaries and worked for the French Television ARTE and for the Belgian channel RTBF.
As a photographer she has worked as a portrait photographer for several magazines, photographing art world and business personalities. She has shown her photographs and her "photo-weavings" in a dozen countries. She produced, from 1994 to 1997, important photo-journalistic work on the situation of disabled people in Europe and on institutionalized children, all the while pursuing her independent work as a photographer.
From 1993 to 1995 she was president of the ARPF (Belgian Association of Film Directors-Producers). She has been vice-president of the Belgian committee of the SACD (Author’s Guild) since 1996.
She currently lives and works in Brussels and Marseilles. (7/12)
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