Young French Cinema 2023: Stuntwomen (Cascadeuses)
Director: Elena Avdija Run Time: 84 min. Release Year: 2022
Starring: Estelle Piget, Petra Sprecher, Virginie Arnaud
Country: Switzerland, France
Language: French, English, German
Young French Cinema 2023
Discover a new generation of directors, presented at the Film Center from May 19 – 22, 2023.
See more Young French CinemaAbout the film:
Official Selection of the 2022 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam
Being thrown down a flight of stairs, hit by a car or beaten up is the everyday life for stuntwomen. We follow Virginie, Petra and Estelle during training sessions and on film sets in France and the US. What does all this pretend-violence do to their bodies and minds? There is always a trade-off between the desire to perform as realistically as possible and their own boundaries. Scenes with cars are spectacular, but the roles in which they are beaten up are much harder to watch. Few action movies have female heroes so they usually play the role of victims. Stuntwomen are hired to endure violence, while the task of their male colleagues is to inflict it.
