Vidéo Femmes in Six Acts

The 50th-anniversary celebrations of Vidéo Femmes, organized by the Quebec City Film Festival in September 2023, inspired us to create a tribute to the pioneers and filmmakers who contributed to the growth of women’s filmmaking in Quebec (both in video and cinema!). In the form of a programming layover, we invite you to (re)discover a selection of six little seen works, offering an overview of the forms explored by the Vidéo Femmes artist collective from 1983 to 2011.

The Vidéo Femmes team on the stairs of the Musée de la Civilisation in Quebec City. Circa 1988.

Founded in 1973 in Quebec, Vidéo Femmes first took root during an edition of the Toronto-based women’s film festival Women and Film, where several generations of cinephiles discovered and were amazed by the audacity and talents of numerous international women directors. The local programming, led by Hélène Roy at Laval University, inspired two young women, Nicole Giguère and Helen Doyle, who seized the first video cameras to create freely and document feminist struggles, which were in full swing at the time. Over time, the collective expanded, creating a distribution network and its own festival (Des filles des vues), while encouraging a new generation of filmmakers to experiment with technology to reclaim their history and create new feminist imaginaries, challenging the rigid world of patriarchal institutions.

Until its 2015 merger with the distributor Spira, generations followed, carrying the conviction that a refuge like Vidéo Femmes would always be necessary to create alternative narratives in an industry where access to resources and gender inequality remain ongoing struggles for these creators. Over the decades, productions evolved, giving rise to different artistic horizons; a diverse body of work that puts the focus on women’s voices and offers intimate and political reflections on realities often marginalized by society.

While we owe Vidéo Femmes a debt of gratitude for caring for our life stories for many years, it is important to remember how preserving this feminist memory remains a sensitive issue. So, how do we sustain this legacy? How do we bring these works, often eclipsed from cinematic heritage, to light? It’s difficult to provide a simple, singular answer. On the contrary, a variety of dissemination and promotion strategies are essential to spark awareness and ignite collective consciousness. The carte blanche granted to the collective in 2022 by the RIDM (Montreal International Documentary Festival), followed by the publication of Vidéo Femmes: Fragments of a Feminist Legacy (1973-1993) in 2024 on the Cinémathèque québécoise website, and initiatives carried out by distributor Spira, are part of a larger project aimed at decentralizing what remains a hegemonic cinephilia.

In continuing this approach, which we undertake with great humility, this layover offers a journey through time and the history of the artist collective by diving into some of the standout works that will showcase the imagination and artistic talent of eight filmmakers. Covering a variety of styles and topics (women’s mental health, the future of feminism, housing crises, violence against women), this program is accompanied by reflections written by different generations of women filmmakers and members involved in the collective. Through this intergenerational dialogue, we aim to bring a fresh perspective on this unique history and renew our view of these works.

Until we meet again, we wish you an enjoyable viewing and a wonderful journey into the world of Vidéo Femmes!