From the rich archives, Annette Lévy-Willard delivers the sparkling story of her initiatory journey to the United States, the day after May 68.
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Annette Lévy was 21 years old in May 68. But, very quickly, the young feminist disillusioned. In the demonstrations, the guys shout “Back up the girls!” They are the ones who write the story, not them. This can no longer last.
So, with her friends who have all read the second sex, by Simone de Beauvoir, they found the women’s liberation movement (MLF). To defend the right to abortion and fight against old patriarchy. Like Women’s Lib (for Women’s Liberation Movement), which have so much ahead: there, women have had the right to vote since 1920 and access to the pill since 1960. Rather attractive …
Also, after placing the typing course where her father, Annette and her friends, Nadja, Marielle, Cathy and Lilianne, decided to leave in May 1971 in the United States, registered it to cross the United States Pays de Washington in San Francisco in school bus, and meet their “sisters” of struggle.
very personal road trip
The one who has become the journalist and writer Annette Lévy-Willard unrolls a very personal road trip, told in the first person by the clear voice of the actress Léonie Simaga. Using numerous archives (including hers, original), and a soundtrack that gives pride of place to Janis Joplin and the one she calls “Woodstock’s Rockstar”, Country Joe – The viewer will understand Later this preferential treatment-it effectively teleports us in the atmosphere of the 1970s, scent of marijuana included.
The film is not there to specify certain historical points, such as the origin of the MLF, but to testify to the doubts and intellectual journey of a young woman, with a welcome freshness and frankness. No disappointments are elected. Whether mechanical, sentimental (from his Parisian boyfriend to Roberto and his big motorcycle) or ideological. And there the film becomes downright exciting.
Parties to discover radical experiences – sexual liberation, antiserxist struggles -, friends will thus see that they do not have the same notion of radicality as Women’s Lib. When the latter criticize their shaved legs or declare that it is necessary to emasculate men, Annette does not hide her misunderstanding. Further on, in Chicago, she wonders: “What mode of emancipation for non-lens?” And contrasts: “Your sexual liberation is not ours.”
More or less long stays in various communities are also a source of surprises. If some members seem to apply the slogan “enjoy without hindrance” beyond the sixty-eight injunctions, in Salt Lake City, the polygamous Mormons follow very different rules when, in conservative America, homosexuals are still hunted … Francisco, the third collective of Berkeley will finally be good. Annette puts her suitcases there and “lightens her life” – beautiful formula to say that she no longer puts makeup or bra.
Summer will last four years. A trainer trip, which will decide the choice of the young Annette to become a journalist and blows a wind of saving freedom while, half a century later, the right to abortion is called into question by the Supreme Court of States- United. “Nothing is ever definitively acquired”, said Beauvoir…