Commissioned by Lux – Scène Nationale de VALENCE for the Viva Cinema festival, the Ciné-concert Pionnières explores the poetic relationships between Loïs Weber’s cinema, and Germaine Dulac and musical performance, around the films Suspense (1913) and La Cigarette (1919).
These two directors, screenwriters and producers, one French and the other American, are two major figures of the avant-The film is still far too discreet in its recognition of the importance of their filmography and their place in the history of cinema.
They are also feminist activists: Lois Weber leans on Where are my children? (1916) on a miscellaneous fact to support the claim of the right to abortion and campaigned for birth control while Germaine Dulac signed with La Souriante Madame Beudet (1923), an acid critique of married lifebourgeois considered the first true feminist film.
Pioneers is an ode to the artistic and political commitment of these artists through two films marked by a powerful rhythmic and sensory dimension.
The musical gesture, in turn melodic, textured, acoustic or electric, always chiseled, unfolds in an extremely precise writing, inseparable from the script and the plastic images that allow to develop a rich and resolutely contemporary musical imagination.