Germaine Dulac: Duty, Deviance, and Desire

October 16–23, 2003

Germaine Dulac (1882–1942) was a central figure in 1920s French avant-garde cinema, and its only woman director. A filmmaker with her own production company who worked in narrative, avant-garde, and documentary genres, Dulac was also an active feminist, an outspoken film and theater critic, a cofounder of the French Federation of Cin&eacure;-Clubs, and a prolific writer who wrote some of the earliest treatises on avant-garde film. This exhibition features archival prints of ten films Dulac made between 1919 and 1929, some of which have never before been screened in the U.S.

Curated by Irina Leimbacher, Associate Curator, San Francisco Cinematheque, and organized for MoMA by Jytte Jensen, Associate Curator, Department of Film and Media. The exhibition is sponsored by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S. Special thanks to the Cinémathèque française; Nederlands Filmmuseum; Lightcone, Paris; The Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley; Cinematheque Ontario; William Moritz; and Tami Williams.