TERRA FEMME

USA 2021 - DCP - 62 minutes, in English

Director, Producer, Screenplay, Print Courtesy: Courtney Stephens

Filmmaker Courtney Stephens delves head first into the archive, excavating a range of fascinating amateur travelogues filmed by women during the early 20th century. Weaving in her own experiences traveling through India after a bleak health diagnosis, Stephens crafts a thought-provoking and dreamlike essay film, ruminating on female physical and spatial autonomy, the power and subjectivity of image making, and the inherent privilege of sating one’s wanderlust. Meticulously researched and skilfully edited, with a haunting score by Sara Davachi, Terra Femme explodes our understanding and popular usage of the term “female gaze,” turning it away from sexuality and desire and focusing it outwards, onto the world at large. Stephens considers these films not solely as neutral verité documents but portals into the inner lives and distinct interests of these women, welcoming the question, “when given the opportunity, how do women see the world differently?” –SR