Ecofeminism

PERPETUATING THE WORLD: A DOCUMENTARY JOURNEY THROUGH ECOFEMINIST STRUGGLES

 

In partnership with the SACRe doctoral programme at PSL University and the Institut universitaire de France.

Drawing inspiration from ecofeminist thinking and activism from the 1970s to the present day, the seventh edition of “Festival Conversations” continues a reflection that Silvia Federici began in 2024, about the horizon of the commons and ways of inhabiting the world. It focuses on the intersectionality of environmental, feminist and decolonial struggles through stories, works and creations that reveal the systemic links between the exploitation of the planet’s resources and the oppression of minorities based on gender, class or race. 

In 2026, Festival Conversations #7 will focus on ecofeminism: an intersectional, decolonial, and anti-capitalist struggle. It will draw on the work of philosopher Emilie Hache (author of De la génération. Enquête sur sa disparition et son remplacement par la production), with the participation of film historians Teresa Castro and Becca Voelcker, among others.

A program of films will echo ecofeminist thought and action, mirroring this time of discussion with Five Year Diary by Anne-Charlotte Robertson and the Indian group Yugantar (Sudesha) among others.

Revisiting the term coined by Françoise d’Eaubonne in her 1974 book Feminism or Death, this ecofeminist theme invites theorists, artists and activists to bear witness, share and actualise experiences of struggle and creation, in echo with a programme of six sessions that weave together an intimate and collective history of micro-resistance to the production-driven order in different parts of the world. From the minute gestures of care for the earth and the soul in a garden in Massachusetts, to the daily bonds uniting a human community and a forest in India, via the archives of anti-nuclear activists in England and France: these are all generative practices that this seventh edition of  “Festival Conversations” aims to map.

In addition to six screenings accompanied by discussions, two round tables will explore the historical, political and aesthetic issues raised by these experiences. The first, ‘Community knowledge and practices at the crossroads of generations and struggles’, will revisit the erasure of environmental knowledge and practices that generate collective memory, and the importance of transmitting this knowledge, these practices and community experiences, for which cinema has been one of many tools. The second round table, ‘Modest forms: ecopolitical gestures of creation’, will focus on the techniques and means of creation when it stands against the historical intertwining of modes of production and representation with imperialist and industrial projects, and instead seeks to invent a form commensurate with its eco-ethical responsibility, a modest form, rooted in a land and a community, aligning its ends and its means.

Alice Leroy, coordinator of Festival conversations

Festival conversations is a seminar offered to festival audiences, giving practitioners a voice. It is conceived as a critical space that raises questions about documentary practice and its specificities beyond cinema, exploring what the term ‘documentary’ means to the various actors in the artistic and cultural fields who claim it as their own.

Each year, Festival conversations is the subject of a collection published by Éditions de l’oeil: ‘Savoirs situés’ (Situated Knowledge), the theme of the 2025 edition, is now available.