Nouvelles Femmes: Modern Women of the 1960s French New Wave Cinema

The revolutionary young French New Wave filmmakers of the 1960s were history’s first film-educated writer-directors. They loved Hollywood movies, studied philosophy, wrote discerning film criticism, and dreamed of making movies. As luminary Jean-Luc Godard wrote, they had absorbed “everything the cinema had done,” and now they would do things their way, creating “the new French genre of postwar freedom and the sexual independence of women, love and rebellion."

In Godard’s film Masculin Féminin, a young man speaks of “the total film we carried inside ourselves, the film we wanted to live.” He is at the movies with the woman he yearns to be with. She’s a rising pop singer, and she personifies the New Wave spirit: effervescent, self-possessed, charting her own career, relishing her freedom and sexual autonomy. Women in New Wave films question traditional male authority, seek personal pleasure, and defy restrictions—as do the men who make their films.

This series celebrates directors like François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Éric Rohmer, who are personally and artistically inspired by actresses like Jeanne Moreau, Anna Karina, Brigitte Bardot, Delphine Seyrig, Francoise Fabian, Jean Seberg and Anouk Aimée. And we honor writer-director Agnès Varda, the woman who made a film before any of these men, and who Martin Scorsese calls “One of the gods of the Cinema.” The New Wave also celebrates actors Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Oskar Werner and more.

Lyrical words and images, existential truths light as champagne bubbles, the alluring and surprising ways of the heart, carefree Paris cool, the intoxication of life in the moment. The New Wave’s liberated personal themes and stylistic innovations have inspired Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, Richard Linklater and many others, and its influence will shape tomorrow’s filmmakers.




Ten films in ten weeks on Wednesdays and two Tuesdays (Nov 10, 17), September 16 - November 17, 7:30 pm at the SIFF Uptown Cinema. Digital restorations and 35mm, in French with English subtitles.

Films introduced by series curator Greg Olson, film essays by Tova Gannana, The New Yorker poet, film curator and teacher; and by John Trafton, Los Angeles film professor, author, and podcaster. Their writing will be posted weekly on the SIFF Blog. 

INDIVIDUAL TICKETS
$18 | $12 Members

PASSES
$160 | $100 Members *Members will need to log in to see this price*

SIFF year-round passes are not valid for this event.