Women's Essay Films in Francophone Europe. Exploring the Female Audiovisual Thinking Process

This article aims to analyze women’s essay films in Francophone Europe, exploring the presence of a gendered audiovisual thinking process, and considering both the formal aspect and the thematic dimension. The research allows the characterization of a female audiovisual thinking process determined by both self-representation and the vindication of women filmmakers as creators of images and women’s topics through reflection on female alterities. Thus, it is possible firstly to analyze the enunciative devices used and their evolution—the (self-)portrait, the letter, the diary, the autobiography, autofiction, and dialogue—to create essay films whose audiovisual thinking processes are mostly generated within the images through the mise-en-scène, and through the juxtaposition between visual image and sound image, since the filmmakers have only owned the position of the essayist-manipulator of images in the digital era to generate a reflection that does not need to claim the images’ authorship but rather the reflection created from them. Second, the study analyzes the topics addressed, which mostly revolve around gender topics that also trace a path that goes from gaze to alterity, intersubjectivity, and sisterhood. Women’s gaze makes possible the reflection on feminine alterities in order to confront or identify with them, leading to the construction of intersubjective spaces for reflection that become artistic practices of sisterhood.