With her feminist film club Tonnerre, Elvire Duvelle-Charles participates in the revolution of looks

Can lightning strike the same spot multiple times? Elvire Duvelle-Charles has been calling him for exactly one year at the Majestic Bastille, an independent cinema in Paris, where cinematic love at first sight is almost guaranteed.

among the waves by Anais Volpe, St. Omer by Alice Diop Annie Rage by Blandine Lenoir… Since September 2022, the Tonnerre ciné-club has been organizing one film screening a month followed by a conversation between the director of the projected work and an expert on the theme represented, in order to shed feminist light on the dark room. ” These discussions are Tonnerre’s main reason for being. The film is above all a pretext to collect, discuss and rethink the world “, explains the founder of the initiative, Elvire Duvelle-Charles, whom you may know as a journalist, ex Femen, co-founder of the Clit Revolution movement (Instagram community of sexual and intimate education, turned into documentary series France TV Slash) , author and co-host of the Hot Line sex podcast.

For to missElvire Duvelle-Charles traces the genesis of Tonnerre, confirms a successful feminist film club in the second season and avoids her move to directing fiction…

Interview with Elvire Duvelle-Charles, founder of the feminist film club Tonnerre

To miss. How do you present yourself today?

Elvire Duvelle-Charles. I am a journalist, director, feminist activist and right now I am organizing the revolution in cinemas with my feminist film club Tonnerre. It takes place every month at the Majestic Bastille and brings together filmmakers, authors, sociologists, historians and midwives to open feminist discussions after each screening.

What was your relationship with cinema before launching your film club?

I’ve always had a great love for cinema. I’m lucky to have parents who showed me beautiful films very early on that marked and shaped me. I’ve always loved “making movies”. When we were kids, my best friend who I always dated had a video camera. We used to spend entire weekends making movies with our friends. We were lucky to have a school that had a movie option that this friend signed up for.

I was in the theater option. But one day my friend who was in a hurry to render her film at the end of the year, asked me to finish editing her for her, I liked it so much that I changed my option next year. . I think that’s when I knew I wanted to be a director. At that time I was quite tempted by social professions: social worker, lawyer, psychologist. Discovering certain films I understood that we could also change the world that way, and that’s what I wanted to try.

How did you come up with the idea of ​​founding your film club?

After the publication of my essay Feminism and social networks, a story of love and hate in which I come to the somewhat bitter observation that feminists (including myself) have hastily launched body and soul into social networks where they have found themselves trapped in capitalism, I wanted to find a way to bring the Clit Revolution community together offline . I’ve launched a Patreon where I organize a Book Club and where I tell a little behind the scenes of my work.

We’re on a small committee, so I started proposing film releases between us. Talking to the girls who came, I realized that they rarely went to the cinema, yet they always liked the films we went to see, and every time fascinating discussions arose. That’s how I said to myself: hey, we could do it, but at 250. It’s thanks to them that Tonnerre was born.

Was it difficult for you to convince a cinema, the Majestic Bastille, to join you in this adventure?

I expected it to take some time to find an available cinema, in the end it was lightning fast: the Dulac team (owner of the Majestic Bastille) was immediately very enthusiastic!

Did you have a particular relationship with this cinema?

For nothing. I grew up in the suburbs, so the cinema I owe everything to is my neighborhood cinema (that’s why it was important for me to do Tonnerre covers in cinemas like Cin’Hoche in Bagnolet). I chose the Majestic Bastille because it was central and well served, for me it was important to do it in an independent cinema (which is run by a woman).

Why is it important for you to propose talks after the screenings that extend the reflections brought by the films?

In fact, these discussions are Tonnerre’s main reason for being. The film is above all a pretext to collect, discuss and rethink the world. Of course, gathering around a movie isn’t insignificant. I told Claire Simon [cinéaste française, autrice de plusieurs films documentaires, Les Patients, Récréations, et Coûte que coûte récompensés dans de nombreux festivals] the other day that Tonnerre wasn’t just talking about cinema, which went beyond cinema. She answered me: ” There is nothing bigger than cinema and I understand what he means.

Something huge happens when you meet a great film, an upheaval that I would find hard to explain. Experiencing these emotions together is, I find, an excellent starting point for in-depth discussions.

A film, if done well, raises many questions. I wanted Tonnerre’s sessions to also provide the first elements of response. This is why I made the choice to have the directors discuss with speakers who have a different approach to the field (because they have studied or practiced it).

Also for this reason I have partnered with the feminist bookshop Un livre une cup de thé which always offers a selection of books at the exit of the room (which we prepare with the speakers and the booksellers) and it is also for this reason that I send a newsletter a few days after the session with a list of cultural recommendations (podcasts, movies, books, articles) related to the discussion we had.

Is it difficult to get filmmakers and intellectuals to participate in post-screening talks?

Only once have I been faced with a director who did not appreciate the concept of talking to a sociologist because she believed that “ the film stands on its own “. All the other directors are very enthusiastic about this format, because they are used to bringing their film by themselves (and therefore repeating themselves a lot) and because the presence of a third person there allows them to deal with a new approach.

It has given rise to excellent meetings, because often the director does not necessarily know the work of the speaker (and vice versa) so they are excited to discover each other’s work and to discuss it, sometimes even friendship is born. I don’t want to give spoilers, but I even think that one director I received had such a crush on the speaker who accompanied the session that we are not immune to her offering him a role in her next film.

Now that French cinemas have regained ¾ of their pre-Covid presence, what could make French women and men want more to go to the cinema?

Watching movies that don’t always tell the same thing, always with the same look and always the same cast, would already be a good start. When I was little, I watched a lot We sing in the rain which was one of my favorite movies. In it, Kathy Selden explains that she doesn’t go to the movies much because ” when we’ve seen one movie, we’ve seen them all “.

It is true that films that enjoy great visibility and great promotion are always a little redundant: in subject matter, in appearance, in theme, in narrative schemes, in characters. In short, it’s boring. On the other hand, there are many very good films that we hear little about, mostly because they were made on a small budget and don’t have the means to do big advertising campaigns. Our job is to introduce these films to today’s Kathy Seldens, but so is show broadcasters that there is an audience for these new looks and that it is important to fund them.

The last Cannes Film Festival (from 16 to 27 May 2023) saw 6 women in the running for the Palme d’Or, finally won by Justine Triet with Anatomy of a fall, and never before have so many female directors appeared in competition. Is this an indicator of the beginning of a (still too slow) shift towards parity behind the cameras?

I really can’t be happy with this mini twist, because they are not concrete data. We know very well that next year we could easily not find women in the official selection.. Also, I think the choice of these particular directors is by no means insignificant. Many of them are known in the community for being violent and disrespectful.

It’s Thierry Frémeaux’s way of having fun with feminists: ” Do you want more women in Cannes? Alright, we’ll show you a woman who played Johnny Deep, another who is accused of harassing her actresses and of covering up the existence of a sex scene involving a minor (who was allegedly sexually assaulted during filming) , and a woman who defended Harvey Weinstein and who compared the #MeToo movement to the Holocaust (only that, according to her, the victims are men). Will you find some equality again? »

Do you plan to continue Tonnerre next year, or even extend it to other cinemas in the future?

Certain ! The second season is already in the works. For the moment I can already say that Tonnerre will have a session outside the walls on the Toulouse side, for the rest it is still under construction. It is a film club that requires a lot of work and has very little financial means, therefore we are also working to find contributions and sources of funding to be able to grow!

After directing the documentary series Clit Révolution for France TV Slash, and now with Tonnerre, is it only a matter of time before you direct other films yourself, and maybe even fiction?

[Rires] I won’t spoil anything.

Do you like our articles? You will love our newsletters! Sign up for free on this page.