Manifesto: “We are a queer feminist collective. We curate film screenings and events. Our mission is to offer a freed up space for the re-examination of ideas through art.
In the age of the sound-bite, Club des Femmes is a much-needed open platform for more radical contextualisation and forward-looking future vision: a chance to look beyond the mainstream.”
Founders: Sarah Wood & Selina Robertson
Collective: So Mayer, Alex Thiele & Jenny Clarke
EVENTS:
Summer Camp for Girls (2007) at Curzon Soho & Renoir [now Bloomsbury]
“Welcome to Club des Femmes's Summer Camp for Girls, a shaded, leafy space in the hot glare of contemporary conservatism. At Summer Camp this year relive the freedom of punk as Club des Femmes revisits Vivienne Dick, Sadie Benning, Lizzie Borden - filmmakers who defined a new world order and gave back to girls the Power of Camp. Why not also pull up a log and light up the campfire to celebrate our annual investigations into recent women's filmmaking. Or feeling curious about Dykesploitation? This year's spotlight falls on Kristy McNichol.”
- BORN IN FLAMES + STATEN ISLAND at Curzon Soho
- THE LIVES OF GIRLS AND WOMEN at Renoir
- THE CONTEMPORARY UNSPEAKABLE: TWO FILMS BY VIVIENNE DICK at Curzon Soho
- SADIE BENNING: 2 PIXELVISION VIDEOS at Curzon Soho; “sponsored by Peccaddillo Pictures”
- DYKESPLOITATION: TRASH WE LOVE TO KEEP! at Curzon Soho
Discipline & Anarchy: a Celebration of Kathy Acker (2008) with London Short Film Festival at ICA; feat. “readings from her writing [..by Ali Smith and Kathleen Bryson].”
Lover Other (2008) at the BFI (NFT2), via their Out At The Pictures programme
Body of Work (2009) with London Short Film Festival at ICA; “generously supported by Peccadillo Pictures”
A Swinging Summertime Special (2009) at Curzon Soho
WHY HAVE THERE BEEN NO GREAT WOMEN ARTISTS? (2009) in Goldsmiths (London) + The Box (FACT, Liverpool)
Maidens in Uniform Double Bill (2009) at Curzon Soho, part of a Tribute to Romy Schneider season, in collaboration with Ciné lumière, CDF, German Films & Goethe-Institut London
The Contemporary Unspeakable: Three Films by Vivienne Dick (2009) in Berlin, as part of Britspotting
A Star is Born (2010) with London Short Film Festival, at ICA
Club Des Femmes and Spinster take New Berlin (2011) with London Short Film Festival at Rio Cinema, Dalston
JE TU IL ELLE + LA DUCHA (2011) with Fringe! The London Gay Film Fest at the Aubin Cinema, Shoreditch
Dirty Diaries (2012) with London Short Film Festival at The Horse Hospital
[Due To TMDb’s restrictions on pornography, I can’t add this to their database / Letterboxd without trouble]
We love Ken Russell forever (2012) at Hackney Picturehouse, introduced by Ali Smith
Everything You Always Wanted to Know about New Queer Cinema but were Afraid to Ask... (2012) with Fringe! LGBTQ Film Festival at the Aubin Cinema
+ “Fasten your seatbelts for Sophie Mayer's whistlestop NQC 101 lecture”
Two Lives (2012) during Scala Beyond, at The Horse Hospital
Save Pussy Riot! (2013) with London Short Film Festival at The Human Rights Action Centre
Happy Birthday Nico! (2013) for Fringe! at the Aubin Cinema
Pussy Riot — A Punk Prayer (2013) with Fringe! & The Sunday Society at Hackney Picturehouse
Futurewoman (2013) at The Horse Hospital, during Women on the Edge of Time, a weekend exploring feminist sci-fi
The Irreducible Difference of the Other (2014) with Open City Docs and London Short Film Festival at the ICA
Belleville Baby (2014) with Birds Eye View Festival at the ICA
The Headless Woman (2014) for Anxiety Arts Festival at the Barbican
SHE MUST BE WIKI: Feminist Film Wiki-a-Thon (2014) hosted with the University of Kent and ICA
Ada & After (2014) in partnership with the BFI’s Sci-Fi: Days of Fear and Wonder season + Film London. Presented at the ICA, Hackney Picturehouse and Electric Cinema (Shoreditch) over four days
- Tank Girl + Intro [by “writer, critic and BBC presenter Bidisha”] at the ICA
- Conceiving Ada + Afronauts + Intro [“by award winning steam punk novelist Liesel Schwarz”] at the ICA
- Sepideh: Reaching For The Stars + Did I Say Hairdressing? I Meant Astrophysics + introduction by Shami Chakrabarti [then “Director of Liberty (The National Council for Civil Liberties”] at Electric Cinema (Shoreditch)
- Björk + Biophilia Live + Beastliness + Q&A [with “Liela Moss (The Duke Spirit, Roman Remains) and Jemma Desai (I am Dora)”] at the ICA
- We The Others + Q&A With Maja Borg at the ICA
- The Hunger Games + Introduction [by writer, critic and BBC presenter Bidisha] at Electric Cinema (Shoreditch)
- Unbound + Readings [by Isabel Waidner + “Experimental science fiction poetry by Sophie Robinson”] at The ICA
- Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same + Space Dog Assassin + Intro [by Bev Zalcock & Sara Chambers] at the ICA
+ Women are Writing SCIENCE-FICTION at Hackney Picturehouse
“interactive screenwriting workshop with Campbell X and sci fi writer Nalo Hopkinson (on Skype)”
& No Gravity + House of Science: A Museum of False Facts (rescheduled!) at Hackney Picturehouse
Dandy Dust + Q&A [director / star Hans Scheirl + cast & crew] (2014) in collaboration with BFI Flare, at the BFI
PAPA'S CINEMA IS DEAD! Looking Through the Greek Female Lens [+ panel discussion] [feat. director Konstantina Kotzamani & actress Ariane Labed (Attenberg, The Capsule)] (2015) with London Short Film Festival at the ICA
Women in Revolt: Body of Work (2015) with Shorts on Tap at Hotel Elephant, supported by Film Hub London
The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution revisited (2015) at The Horse Hospital, “an evening of screenings, readings, art activism and conversation to celebrate Verso’s publication of the new edition of Shulamith Firestone’s groundbreaking manifesto.”
She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry (2015) in partnership with London Feminist Film Festival at Rio Cinema, Dalston
Onwards and Outwards: Club des Femmes & Campbell X (2015) via Onwards and Outwards, led by and screened at the ICA
This is Now: Film and Video After Punk – Through A Glass, Darkly + guests [Jill Westwood & Cordelia Swann] (2015) with Fringe! and LUX at Rio Cinema, Dalston; “Part of the touring programme ‘This is Now: Film and Video After Punk’, presented in partnership with LUX and the BFI National Archive.”
BRINGING GREENHAM HOME (2016), a weekend of screenings and activism at Rio Cinema, Dalston, in January, including a day devoted to creating a Club des Femmes Activists’ Handbook. Part of THE TIME IS NOW, “a UK-wide film project, celebrating women forcing change, curated and produced by Showroom Workstation and Film Hub North in partnership with Pathé and Twentieth Century Fox ... a BFI Film Audience Network initiative with the support of the BFI, awarding funds from The National Lottery”
This was then staged again 6 months later, in July, over one day at HOME Manchester. Two films were added to the programme, whilst many from the original event were no longer included.
The Prostitutes of Lyon Speak Out (UK premiere) (2016), with The English Collective of Prostitutes and Sex Worker Open University, at Rio Cinema, Dalston
Old Words in New Orders: Almost Out & MAN (2016) with Fringe! at the Barbican
An Action des Femmes at the Photographers’ Gallery in response to ‘Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s: Works from the Verbund Collection’ (2016-17) at The Photographers’ Gallery
I Am My Own (2016) with Juliet Jacques and Verso at The Horse Hospital
“Smoulder and Curl” Five Films by Annette Kennerley + Q&A with A.K. (2017) with London Short Film Festival at the ICA
CdF PRESENTS #IWD 2017: GUERILLAS IN OUR MIDST & EAT THE KIMONO (2017) at Whitechapel Gallery, as part of their Guerilla Girls exhibition: ‘Is it even worse in Europe?’
CdF X BFI Library: Salon Discussion Lesbian Cinema (2017) at the BFI Reuben Library
THE GERMAN SISTERS (Die Bleierne Zeit) + discussion [with Sophie Mayer, Annie Ring, Sarah Wood & Sarah Crewe talking "feminist strategies of resistance"] (2017) at the BFI (NFT3), via their monthly Woman with a Movie Camera screenings
Being Ruby Rich (2017) season in collaboration with the Barbican, and in association with Birkbeck College. Programme supported by Film Hub London, managed by Film London; a partner of the BFI Film Audience Network, funded by the National Lottery.
If you’ve ever heard the phrase ‘New Queer Cinema’, you’ve been touched by the work of B Ruby Rich. This June there’s a unique chance to learn more with the Barbican’s programme dedicated to her 40 years as a curator and critic at independent cinema’s cutting edge, from feminism via New Queer Cinema to social documentary.
- CdF presents Being Ruby Rich: !Women Art Revolution at the Barbican
- Being Ruby Rich: Film Curation As Advocacy and Activism [an interactive, day-long symposium]at Birkbeck Cinema, “Sponsored by Birkbeck Institute of Humanities, BIMI, BIRMAC”
- De Cierta Manera (15 cert*) + Keynote by B. Ruby Rich at the Barbican
- A Room of Our Own + panel discussion (18 cert *) {..with Laura Hudson; Ben Walters; Liv Wynter; chaired by Claire Kurylowski] at the Barbican
- Strong Island (15* cert) + ScreenTalk with B. Ruby Rich & Yance Ford at the Barbican
- Queer Cinema in the Age of Streaming Roundtable [B. Ruby Rich, in discussion with Dagmar Brunow, Campbell X, Hakeem Kazeem, Kanchi Wichmann and Simon McCallum] at the Barbican
- The Holy Girl (La niña santa) + Girl Power (15 * cert) + introduction by Sophie Mayer at the Barbican, and restaged a day later at The Lexi Cinema, introduced by Sophie Mayer and Maria Cabrera
CdF x ICA present: Elisabeth Subrin Shorts programme + Q&A [with E.S.] (2017) at the ICA
Club des Femmes & Felicity Sparrow X Fringe! present: AN INVITATION TO JACQUI D (16mm presentation) + post screening discussion [with Mandy Merck (chair), Jay Bernard and Cherry Smyth] (2017), at Rio Cinema, Dalston
CdF x Dulwich Picture Gallery: Tove Jansson: An Intimate Portrait (2018), part of the Tove Jansson (1914 - 2001) exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery
Revolt, She Said: Women and Film after ‘68 (2018), a major tour across the UK, with the support of the ICO (Independent Cinema Office) and the BFI, awarding funds from The National Lottery
I Want A Dyke for President (2019) with London Short Film Festival at Rio Cinema, Dalston
I Am Somebody + Red Skirts on Clydeside (2019) with HOME (Manchester), part of their season Women, Organise! Celebrating Women in Global Cinema (zine); "season supported by the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU) Education Trust, to celebrate the 120th anniversary of the GFTU."
Evidentiary Bodies: Celebrating Barbara Hammer & Carolee Schneemann (2019) with LUX
CdF x Fringe! 2019: Two Decades of Dyke Shorts from the British Underground 1980s-1990s (2019) with Cinenova, at Stoke Newington Library Gallery
CdF x CINEMATEK x LIZZIE BORDEN: REBEL FILMS (2020) at CINEMATEK, Brussels ("In collaboration with CINEMATEK, Lizzie Borden, Girls on Film, Elles Tournant and Courtisane")
Feminist Re-Imaginings at the Rio 1980-2020, Programme 1 (2020) at Rio Cinema, Dalston
Feminist Re-Imaginings at the Rio 1980-2020, Programme 2 (2020) at Rio Cinema, Dalston
CdF’s Reading List
(selected from texts in the BFI Reuben Library, to accompany their salon discussion)
“We selected the BFI Reuben Library’s Collections Focus for March 2017 to accompany our Salon discussion [re. Lesbian Cinema]. Here is our list – happy reading!
Kim Akass and Janet McCabe, eds. Reading the L-word: Outing Contemporary Television
Chantal Akerman, Les Rendez-vous d’Anna [script]
Bad Object-Choices, How Do I Look? Queer Film and Video
Edith Becker, Michelle Citron, Julia Lesage, B. Ruby Rich, Special Section: Lesbians and Film, Jump Cut nos 24/25 March 1981
Bernstorgg and Hetze, eds. Frauen in Hosen: Hosenrollen im Film
Wayne Bryant, Bisexual Characters in Film From Anais to Zee
Gary P. Cestaro, ed. Queer Italia: Same-sex Desire in Italian Literature and Film
Abigail Child, This Is Called Moving
Michelle Citron, Home Movies and Other Necessary Fictions
Michelle Citron, Jump Cut, see Edith Becker above.
Colette, Colette at the Movies: Criticism and Screenplays
Marlene Dietrich: Greta Garbo Storsta Konkurrent (photobook)
Richard Dyer, Now You See It: Studies in Gay and Lesbian Film
Richard Dyer, Images of Homosexuality, NFT programme July 1977
Gever, Greyson & Parmar, eds, Queer Looks
Shohini Ghosh, Fire: A Queer Film Classic
Liz Gibbs, ed. Daring to Dissent: Lesbian Culture From Margins to Mainstream
Jane Giles, Bad Girls (poster pamphlet)
Robin Griffiths, ed. British Queer Cinema
Boze Hadleigh, The Lavender Screen
Barbara Hammer, Hammer!
Briony Hanson, She Must Be Seeing Things: A Selective History of Lesbian Cinema, NFT Programme June 2004
Lynda Hart, Fatal Women: Lesbian Sexuality and the Mark of Aggression
Heathcote, Hughes & Williams, eds. Gay Signatures: Lesbian and Gay Theory, Fiction and Film in France 1945-1995
Kara Keeling, The Witch’s Flight
Alice A. Kuzniar, The Queer German Cinema
Julia Lesage, Jump Cut, see Edith Becker above.
Sophie Mayer, Political Animals: The New Feminist Cinema
Judith Mayne, Directed by Dorothy Arzner
Judith Mayne, Framed: Lesbians, Feminists and Media Culture
Mandy Merck, Perversions: Deviant Readings
Ulrike Ottinger, Madame X [facsimile screenplay]
Sally Potter, Orlando [screenplay]
Yvonne Rainer, Feelings are Facts
B Ruby Rich, New Queer Cinema
B Ruby Rich, Jump Cut, see Edith Becker above.
Schoonover and Galt, Queer Cinema in the World
Emma Smart, Lesbian and Gay Cinema: A Selective Bibliography (pamphlet)
Chris Straayer, Deviant Eyes, Deviant Bodies
Taormino, Parreñas Shimizu, Penley and Miller Young eds, The Feminist Porn Book
Ruth Vanita, ed. Queering India
Lee Wallace, Lesbianism, Cinema, Space: The Sexual Life of Apartments
Thomas Waugh, The Romance of Transgression in Canada: Queering Sexualities, Nations, Cinemas
Andrea Weiss, Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in the Cinema
Andrea Weiss, Vampires and Violets: Lesbians in the Cinema NFT programme Nov/Dec 1992
Greta Schiller, Before Stonewall [published script]
Patricia White, Uninvited: Classical Hollywood Cinema and Lesbian Representability
Tamsin Wilton ed., Immortal Invisible: Lesbians and the Moving Image
Bev Zalcock, Renegade Sisters: Girl Gangs on Film”
More Reading..
- Maedchen in Uniform: From repressive tolerance to erotic liberation by B. Ruby Rich (1981)
- New Queer Cinema by B. Ruby Rich (1992)
- Queer and Present Danger: after New Queer Cinema by B. Ruby Rich (2000)
- Happy Birthday New Queer Cinema: 20 Years On by Sophie Mayer (2012)
- Belleville Baby: Interview with Director Mia Engberg [by CdF] (2014)
- TANK GIRL STATE OF MIND: An Interview with Rachel Talalay [by CdF] (2014)
- BAKING BREAD FOR PEACE WITH GREENHAM GRANNY: An interview with Caroline Goldie [by CdF] (2016)
- Club des Femmes’ decade of queer feminist film programming [by CdF] (2017)
- Smoulder and Curl: An Interview with Annette Kennerley [by CdF] (2017) Pt. 1 + Pt. 2
- An Introduction to B. Ruby Rich by So Mayer (2017)
- B. Ruby Rich Dossier compiled by Club des Femmes (2017)
- Interview with Club des Femmes [focused towards Tove Jansson, by Dulwich Picture Gallery] (2018)
- Six essential books on lesbian cinema [by CdF] (2018)
- Lizzie Borden on Maeve (2018)
- Revolt, We Said: Sharing Women’s Revolutionary Films Around the UK [by CdF + collaborators] (2018)
No Letterboxd
DIRTY DIARIES
Director. Mia Engberg | Sweden | 2009
[Due To TMDb’s restrictions on pornography, I can’t add this to their database / Letterboxd without trouble]
“Swedish filmmaker/producer Mia Engberg portrays people living on the outskirts of society: skinheads; transsexuals; punk kids. In 2001, she was at the centre of international festival interest with her first Swedish lesbian erotic film Selma & Sofie, which was made by an all female crew.
Her newest project, Dirty Diaries, is a diverse collection of twelve queer feminist porn shorts. With the help of the Swedish Film Institute, Engberg commissioned twelve filmmakers to create erotic films – the way they like it. On their release in 2009, the films gained notoriety, especially because the project was publicly funded. The shorts oscillate between soft and hardcore, queer and hetero, and creatively play with porno stereotypes.
So what do women want and what does feminist porn made by women look like? Engberg and her friends show us their films – their lives celebrating, investigating and playing with (as Caitlin Moran writes in her recent book How To Be A Woman) ‘free-range’ porn.”
Films I’ve Added to Letterboxd / TMDb:
She Wanted Green Lawns
Dir. Sarah Turner | UK | 1989
A Question of Choice
Dir. Sheffield Film Co-Op | UK | 1982
Greenham Granny
Dir. Caroline Goldie | UK | 1982 |
No Gravity
Dir. Silvia Casalino | Italy-France-Germany | 2011
We The Others
Dir. Maja Borg | Sweden | 2014
Nico: In Memoriam
Dir. Bernd Gaul | Germany | 1988
I Want A Dyke For President
Dir. Adinah Dancyger | 2016
Strong Women
Dir. Jayne Parker | UK | 2000
In Our Hands, Greenham
Dir. Tina Keane | UK | 1984
Shadow of a Journey
Dir. Tina Keane | UK | 1979/80
Silo Walk
Dir. Lucy Reynolds | UK | 2008 - 2010
Random Acts of Intimacy
Dir. Clio Barnard | UK | c. 1999
Ironing to Greenham
Dirs. Lis Rhodes & Jo Davis | UK | 1983
Swallow
Dir. Laure Prouvost | UK | 2013
The Wound
Dir. Jill Westwood | UK | 1984
Skinheads and Roses
Dir. Jill Westwood | UK | 1983
Guerrillas In Our Midst
Dir. Amy Harrison | USA | 1992
Passion Triptych
Dir. Cordelia Swann | UK | 1982
Winter Journey in the Hartz Mountains
Dir. Cordelia Swann | UK | 1983
A Month of Single Frames
Dir. Lynne Sachs | USA | 2019
Medea
Dir. Ursula Mayer | 2013 | UK
Grayson/Flowers/Jewels
Dir. Jennifer Binnie | 1985 | UK
The Branks
Dir. Akiko Hada | 1982 | UK
DES!RE
Dir. Campbell X | UK | 2017
Sticks and Stones; Bambi Lake
Dir. Silas Howard | US | 2014
Sweet Ruin
Dir. Elisabeth Subrin | USA | 2008
Peggy Shaw – A Film Portrait
Dir. Tanya Syed | UK | 2014
Matt
Dir. Annette Kennerley | UK-USA | 1998
17 Rooms (Or What Do Lesbians Do in Bed?)
Dir. Caroline Sheldon | UK | 1985
One and the Other Time
Dir. Sarah Turner | UK | 1990
Deviant Beauty
Dir. Tina Keane | UK | 1996
Cousin cousine
Dir. Maria Mohr | Germany | 2005
Beastliness
Dir. Deborah Kelly | Australia | 2011
Radionica
Dir. Margareta Kern | UK-Bosnia | 2005
Sem titulo
Dir. Celia Domingues | Portugal | 2002
Raising a Resister
Dir. Emma Hedditch | UK | 2003
Kristy
Dir. Stephanie Gray | USA | 2003
Imponderabilia
Dirs. Marina Abramovich & Ulay | The Netherlands | 1977
Human Radio
Dir. Miranda Pennell | UK | 2002
Drum Room
Dir. Miranda Pennell | UK | 2007
Intrepidíssima
Dir. Marta Balletbò-Coll | Spain | 1992
Poem about My Rights
Prod. Pratibha Parmar & Shaheen Haq | UK | 2011
The Passionate Spectator
Dir. Del LaGrace Volcano | UK | 2003
Space Dog Assassin
Dirs. Bev Zalcock & Sara Chambers | UK | 1998
Dayglo (You Know, You Know)
Dirs. Bev Zalcock & Sarah Chambers | UK | 2011
East End Underground Moment
Dirs. Bev Zalcock & Sara Chambers | UK | 1985/95
Give Us a Smile
Dirs. Leeds Animation Workshop | UK | 1983
Hey Mack
Dir. Tina Keane | UK | 1982
Fellowship
Dir. Anne Robinson | UK | 1984
