VINJETA: U FOKUSU
Program IN FOCUS in cooperation with NGO Woman’s Rights Center
USA/ 2021/63’
DIRECTED BY: Courtney Stephens
EDITED BY: Courtney Stephens, Dounia Sichov
PRODUCER: Courtney Stephens
MUSIC: Sarah Davahi
FESTIVALS: MoMa Doc Fortnight, Dokufest, Camden International Film Festival, IDFA, Festival Arquivo em Cartaz Rio de Janeiro, Rockaway Film Festival, This Human World, Solothurner Filmtage
“What does the narrative of exploration offer women?” This question frames Courtney Stephens’s study of women’s amateur travelogues, which comes to fruition, following live lecture-performances. Composed entirely of archival material and home movies from the 1920s to the 1940s, Terra Femme explores the emancipatory power women found in newly available personal cameras, and the association this self-expression had with gender roles, the rise of a leisured, white middle class, and imperialism.
Courtney Stephens is a writer/director of non-fiction and experimental films. The American Sector, her documentary (co-directed with Pacho Velez) about fragments of the Berlin Wall transplanted to the U.S., was named one of the best films of 2021 in The New Yorker. Her essay film, Terra Femme, comprised of amateur travel footage shot by women in the early 20th century, premiered at the Museum of Modern Art.