Carole Roussopoulos (25 May 1945 – 22 October 2009) was a Swiss film director and feminist who was primarily known for her pioneering early documentary films of the

Women's liberation movement The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminist intellectualism. It emerged in the late 1960s and continued till the 1980s, primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which resulted in g ...

in France. She made approximately 150 documentaries during the course of her career.

Early life

Carole de Kalbermatten was born 25 May 1945 in

Lausanne Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway bet ...

Switzerland Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...

.Fernandez Ferrer, Nicole
"Carole Roussopolous: Biography"
, New Media Art, Retrieved 11 July 2014. She grew up in

Sion, Switzerland Sion (, ; former ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss List of towns in Switzerland, town, a municipality, and the capital of the Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Valais and of the district of Sion (district), Sion. it had a population of (known as '' ...

in the canton of

Valais Valais ( , ; ), more formally, the Canton of Valais or Wallis, is one of the cantons of Switzerland, 26 cantons forming the Switzerland, Swiss Confederation. It is composed of thirteen districts and its capital and largest city is Sion, Switzer ...

Career

In 1969 Roussopoulos and her husband, Paul, created a film collective called Video Out. In 1970, at the urging of her friend the author

Jean Genet Jean Genet (; ; – ) was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist. In his early life he was a vagabond and petty criminal, but he later became a writer and playwright. His major works include the novels '' The Th ...

, she purchased a light-weight Sony

Portapak A Portapak is a battery-powered, self-contained video tape analog recording system. Introduced to the market in 1967, it could be carried and operated by one person. Earlier television cameras were large and heavy, required a specialized vehicle ...

camera and began to make documentaries. It is believed that she is the first woman in France to buy a video camera. That same year she made the documentary film ''Genet parle d'Angela Davis'' (known in English as ''Angela Davis Is at Your Mercy'') about the American political activist

Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American Marxist and feminist political activist, philosopher, academic, and author. She is Distinguished Professor Emerita of Feminist Studies and History of Consciousness at the University of ...

. During her early career, Roussopoulos also witnessed and filmed key events in the human rights crusades in Paris. For instance, her 1971 film ''FHAR'' (Front Homosexuel d'Action Révolutionnaire) documents the very first gay rights parade in Paris. In 1976 Roussopoulos began collaborating with the French actress Delphine Seyrig. Together they directed the 1976 documentary on women's rights entitled ''SCUM Manifesto'', based on the

SCUM Manifesto ''SCUM Manifesto'' is a self-published manifesto by American radical feminist Valerie Solanas. Published in 1967, it argues that men have ruined the world, and that it is up to women to fix it. To achieve this goal, it suggests the formation of ...

written by the radical feminist

Valerie Solanas Valerie Jean Solanas (April 9, 1936 – April 25, 1988) was an American radical feminist known for her attempt to murder the artist Andy Warhol in 1968. Solanas appeared in the Warhol film '' I, a Man'' (1967) and self-published the '' SCU ...

. In 1982, Roussopoulos, Seyrig and Ioana Wieder founded the

Simone de Beauvoir Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir (, ; ; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986) was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, nor was she ...

Audiovisual Center—named after the prominent French feminist author and philosopher—to document the women's rights movement. In 1995 she moved back to Switzerland to document Swiss subjects that she felt were not receiving enough attention. During this time she made a series of films about healthcare, disease, aging, and death.

Les Insoumuses

Roussopoulos, Seyrig, and translator Ivana Wieder formed the feminist collective video Les Insoumuses in 1975 after meeting at a video-editing workshop that Roussopoulos organized in her apartment. The name, ''Les Insoumuses'', is a neologism combining "insoumise" (disobedient) and "muses." The collective produced several videos together, focusing on representations of women in the media, labour, and reproductive rights.

Select filmography

* ''LIP'' (series of six videos, 1973–1976) * ''Y'a qua pas baiser'' (1973) * Les Prostituées de Lyon parlent (1975) * ''Maso et Miso vont en bateau'' (1975) * ''SCUM Manifesto'' (1976) * ''Debout! Une histoire du mouvement de libération des femmes'' (1999) * ''Cinquantenaire du deuxième sexe: 1949-1999'' (2001)

Death

Roussopoulos died on 22 October 2009 in Molignon, Switzerland.

Recognition

In 2001 Roussopoulos was named a Knight (or ''Chevalier'') of the

Legion of Honor The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and civil. Currently consisting of five classes, it was ...

in France for her thirty-two years of service to film.

Legacy

In 2011 the Swiss filmmaker Emmanuelle de Riedmatten made a documentary about Roussopoulos's life called ''Carole Roussoupolos, une femme à la caméra''.

Reference list

{{DEFAULTSORT:Roussopoulous, Carole Swiss film directors Swiss women film directors 1945 births 2009 deaths Swiss feminists Swiss documentary film directors Feminist filmmakers Women documentary filmmakers People from Sion, Switzerland