The Heart of the Matter: The Film Poetics of Anne-Marie Miéville

Swiss multimedia artist Anne-Marie Miéville (1945–) has had a profound impact on cinema for over half a century, creating an influential and large body of work across diverse roles as director, writer, editor, performer and sound designer. Beginning her career as stills photographer on Jean-Luc Godard and Jean-Pierre Gorin’s Tout va bien (1972), and becoming a close collaborator with the former – with whom she shared an artistic and life partnership from the 1970s until his death in 2022 – Miéville’s significant contribution is too often overshadowed by her partner’s legendary body of work.

Her collaborations with Godard traverse new terrains of audiovisual composition and filmic contemplation, the contribution of both artists central to the intellectual journey charted by their work together and apart. Miéville’s collaborative and solo work experiments with developing modes of technology and communication, suggesting their potential while remaining critical of their often-devastating impact.

This season revises a dominant historical account and critical focus that discounts Miéville’s undeniable importance to the history of cinema, joining a swathe of recent programs around the world that highlight her solo work, her essential contributions to the collaborations with Godard, and draw attention to her distinctive artistic practice. As Fabrice Aragno has said of recent retrospectives, “It’s important for her cinema to exist for its own sake.”

This season includes all four of Miéville’s features, a selection of short works including Le livre de Marie (1985), her counterweight companion piece to Godard’s controversial Hail Mary (1985), and Ici et ailleurs (1976), a key film she made with Godard about the Palestinian struggle.