7:00 PM | Friday, September 22
The Ladies Almanack
Regina Public Library Film Theatre - 2311 12 Ave, Regina
Djuna Barnes arrives in Paris in 1926, into the literary salon of Natalie Clifford Barney, an American heiress who does not believe in God or monogamy. Welcome to the lush lesbian landscape that gave rise to some of literature’s most treasured writing.
Based on the novel of the same title by Djuna Barnes,The Ladies Almanack is a kaleidoscopic tribute to women’s writing through the friendships, jealousies, flirtations and publishing woes of female authors and artists in 1920’s Paris.
Arranged month-by-month like an almanac, the story is told by three narrators: Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, and Monique Wittig. Seminal texts of these radical feminist writers were published in the 1970’s, the same decade The Ladies Almanack was reprinted for a public readership. Each character is a hybrid of the historically researched figure and the contemporary artist who portrays her; with the exception of one person, Hélène Cixous. She will be playing herself in the film and is therefore the sole character where the past catches the present in continuous being.
Our objectives are both educational and utopic. The film's purpose is to engage a meaningful dialogue with the dead as well as follow their examples by investing in the contemporary work of our peers.
Filmed on Super 8, The Ladies Almanack stars Guinevere Turner, Terry Castle, Deborah Bright, Jackie Wang, Fannie Sosa and the voices of Eileen Myles and Hélène Cixous.