Annie Colère
Blandine Lenoir, France, 2022o
Rural France in the early spring of 1974: Annie, a factory worker, is already the mother of two children and becomes pregnant again unintentionally. She contacts the MLAC, an association of progressive women that campaigns for the right to abortion and also performs illegal abortions. Annie feels safe with them, becomes more self-confident and eventually active herself: she researches the stories of women who stand up for female causes.
In France, several fronts are calling for the right to abortion to be enshrined in the Constitution. The issue has been part of French cinema since at least 1973 and the release of Charles Belmont and Marielle Issartel's Histoire d'A, a film campaigning for the liberalisation of abortion. The latest milestone in the struggle is Blandine Lenoir's Annie Colère, a film about abortion in 1970s France starring Laure Calamy. Who else could have interpreted the role of this working-class mother of two who, after experiencing abortion and coming into contact with the MLAC, became involved in the fight to legalise it? From the way she hesitates for a few seconds before answering when asked a question, to her determined commitment to the struggle, her body tells the story of how one becomes a political subject.
Émilien GürGalleryo
