Liliane de Kermadec: The Price of Freedom

Liliane de Kermadec, who passed away in 2020, belonged, with Agnès Varda, Yannick Bellon, and a handful of others, to the first generation of self-proclaimed feminist artists working in French cinema, offering together a necessary rejoinder to the industry’s entrenched chauvinism. Born in Warsaw in 1928, de Kermadec was first a bit player actress (in Demy’s The Young Girls of Rochefort for example), then a set photographer (for Varda and Alain Resnais), and finally an influential and industrious director and producer. In the former capacity, her first two features, Home Sweet Home and Aloïse, were much-discussed Cannes selections; in the latter capacity, she helped bring films by Chantal Akerman and close associate Paul Vecchiali to fruition. Accompanying our run of Aloïse, this series offers a chance to appreciate anew de Kermadec’s directorial works, paired with films from friends and collaborators that give a sense of the creatively fecund, politically engaged milieu that nurtured her.