“The Event” reminds us that abortion is not “a woman’s story” – The HuffPost

PROKINO Filmverleih GmbH

CINEMA – Annie Ernaux’s writings are exported to movie theater. After the adaptation of Simple Passion in January, a second text by the French writer, who collaborated with Régis Sauder for his documentary on the city of Cergy-Pontoise in 2021, arrives on our screens this Wednesday, November 24: The event.

The film is signed Audrey Diwan and earned its director the prestigious Golden Lion at the last Venice Film Festival in September. Its story is that of the obstacle course of a humanities student (Anamaria Vartolomei) to abort in the 1960s, a period in French history during which abortion was illegal.

Like the autobiographical novel from which it is inspired, the feature film addresses a range of cross-cutting issues, such as the freedom of women to dispose of their bodies or the desire to free themselves from social determinism. It’s a strong movie. However, financing it has not been easy.

Resilient funding

“I was opposed for reasons that I understand,” explains the filmmaker we met. This is only my second film. I choose a rather radical form. If we stick to the issue of clandestine abortion, it scares the people who fund it. Moreover, the actors are not very well known. ”

Check out the trailer for the film below:

Audrey Diwan is the director of but you are crazy, dramatic story published in 2019 on a case of cocaine poisoning in a family. In addition to a dense career as a journalist (Technikart, Stylist, Glamour) and acclaimed novels (Making a lie), she is also at the origin of the scripts for several Cédric Jimenez films.

Faced with the first refusals, she remained lucid. “I have the impression that some are hiding behind these reasons,” continues the director. I think, in truth, that some people were against abortion. ” It didn’t stop her. On the contrary. “Meeting these obstacles determined us [son producteur Edouard Weil et elle, NDLR] to make this film ”, adds Audrey Diwan.

The reality of a path

In France, abortion has been authorized since the promulgation of the Veil law of January 17, 1975. In many countries abroad, it is prohibited. In others, it is called into question. In Poland, for example, the government has for several years been toughening its laws on access to abortion, to the point where it is virtually banned in 2021. In the United States, the Supreme Court is in a standoff with Texas , where a law now prohibits abortion as soon as the embryo’s first heartbeat is noticeable.

The facts recounted in The event Even though they were earlier, they resonate in the news. Reading the book had the effect of a revelation for Audrey Diwan. “The first shock was to measure the difference that there is between an abortion as it is practiced today and an illegal abortion, she confides. As there are few representations, I was one of those people who had badly imagined the reality of this path, its hardness, the loneliness. ”

His film transcribes it. Certain scenes do not leave the possibility of looking away. “I don’t see a reason to do it,” comments the filmmaker. I have the impression that we question the harshness of the images only in certain places and with regard to certain subjects. ”

She adds: “How many war rendition films are violent and leave no stone unturned? In the same way, I was asked why to make a film on abortion when it was in the past. It’s the same analogy. Tell that next time to whoever makes a WWII film. ”

“Words are the nerves of change”

Judgment, fears, intrusive remarks, inappropriate behavior … The heroine faces the gaze of those around her, her friends, men, doctors and society, throughout the film. This look, “it has evolved”, according to Audrey Diwan, but there are still residues. One of them is measurable in one thing, she tells us: silence and shame.

Audrey Diwan herself has had an abortion in her life. Saying it, formulating it, “it’s hard,” she concedes. When she went to the Venice Film Festival, she hesitated to talk about it openly, “so [qu’elle] worked for three years against silence ”. “Something very insidious and unconscious is going on,” she observes.

Freedom of speech is necessary. “Mentalities change from the moment you put down words. Words are the nerve of change, ”she says. The question concerns us all.

“When I am told that I have made a women’s film on a subject of women, I feel like screaming. It is out of the question that I act on the idea that abortion is a woman’s story. You don’t have a child alone, you don’t get pregnant alone. As this is not the case, I am not alone responsible for the path, for this decision. It is a subject that is not limited to the condition of women. ” The event is shared.

See also on The HuffPost: In the United States, thousands of demonstrators march for the right to abortion