Terra Femme is an essay film comprised of amateur travelogues filmed by women in the 1920s-1950s. With a score by Sarah Davachi, the film weaves between geographical essay, personal inquiry, and historical speculation, examining these films as both private documents and accidental ethnographies. The films present a new type of traveler: no longer a male seeker of conquests, she might be a divorcee on a tour of biblical gardens, or a widow on a cruise to the North Pole.
Representing the world through women’s eyes, the films raise questions about female representation in the archive, the role of amateurism in early non-fiction filmmaking, and the politics of the Western gaze. At once a film about longing for past worlds through cinematic excavation, this force flows in both directions: as women from the past search for self-making in the act of looking.
SCREENINGS & AWARDS
World Premiere: MoMA Doc Fortnight
2021 Dokufest
2021 Camden International Film Festival
2021 IDFA
2021 Festival Arquivo em Cartaz Rio de Janeiro
2021 Rockaway Film Festival
2021 This Human World
2022 Hot Docs (Canadian Premiere)
2022 Indielisboa (Portuguese Premiere)
2022 DOXA Film Festival
2022 Docaviv IDFF (Israeli Premiere)
2022 Mostra Internacional de Films de Dones de Barcelona
2022 Underhill Fest
2022 Revelation Perth International Film Festival
2022 Doqumenta Film Festival (Mexican Premiere)
2022 Sydney Underground FF (Australian Premiere)
2022 MIRAGE Art of the Real Festival
2022 Archivio Aperto
2022 Dharamshala IFF (Indian Premiere)
2022 Memorimage Reus International Film Festival Catalonia
2022 Dingle IFF (Irish Premiere)
2022 RIDM
2022 Transit Film Festival
2023 Apricot Tree Ujan IDFF
And more: Bertha Doc House, Anthology Film Archives New York, Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA), Museum of the Moving Image New York, Walker Art Center, Block Museum Chicago, 2220 Arts + Archives Los Angeles, Royal Geographical Society London, Arnolfini Bristol
AWARDS
- City of Reus Award at Memorimage International Film Festival of Reus 2022
- Martin Adoyan Special Prize at Apricot Tree Ujan International Documentary Film Festival, Armenia 2022
PRESS
Reviews: The Film Stage – The Best Documentaries of 2022, New York Times – Review, New York Times – List of Noteworthy Films Coming This Fall, The Curb (EN), POV Magazine (EN), The Arts Fuse (EN), Modern Times Review (EN), Los Angeles Review of Books Blog (EN), The New Yorker (EN), The Brooklyn Rail (EN) Interviews: Cornell Review (EN), Modern Times Review (EN), The Daily Northwestern (EN), Another Gaze (EN), Desistfilm (EN), Bomb Magazine (EN)
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“[Stephens] pursues the underlying question of whether there is such a thing as the “female gaze”; she develops far-reaching analyses of women’s filmmaking in an era when few women had professional directing careers—and ultimately connects their work to the sociology and the spirit of travel itself.”
Richard Brody, The New Yorker
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“Unexpected archival footage, editing that foregrounds paradox and contradiction, and a personalised, conceptual voice-over are also hallmarks of Terra Femme, a meditation that draws from the formal traditions of the travelogue and the essay film, but re-visions them both.”
Another Gaze
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“The film is brilliant: an exacting commentary on documentary film practice and the very nature of movie watching.” … “Terra Femme is an unforgettable cinematic experience. Not only does Courtney Stephens use the travelogue as a jumping off point for considerations of authorship and point of view but she challenges the notion of objectivity in the act of filming. […] it is an absolutely riveting adventure.”
POV Magazine
DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY
Courtney Stephens
Courtney Stephens is a filmmaker whose non-fiction and experimental films explore the contours of language, historical geography, and women’s lives. Her work is exhibited internationally; venues have included MoMA, National Gallery of Art, The Barbican Centre, Exploratorium, The Garage Museum, BAMPFA, and film festivals including the Berlinale, New York Film Festival, South by Southwest, IDFA, and the Hong Kong, Mumbai, Luxembourg, San Francisco, and Camden International Film Festivals. She was a Fulbright Scholar to India and one of Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. A graduate of the American Film Institute, she co-founded the Los Angeles microcinema Veggie Cloud and has curated film programs for The Getty, Museum of the Moving Image, Union Docs, and Flaherty NYC.
Filmography (selection)
The American Sector (2020)
PRODUCER’S BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY
Courtney Stephens
Filmmaker, writer, producer
PRODUCTION COMPANY
Jacket Weather
USA
courtneyjune@gmail.com
CREDITS
Screenplay Courtney Stephens
Editing Courtney Stephens
Consulting Editor Dounia Sichov
Sound mix Paul Hill
Composer Sarah Davachi
Producer Courtney Stephens
Production company Jacket Weather
