web - (HERO) Last Year at Marienbad 1 copy
"Rebellious Muse": Delphine Seyrig as Actor, Director and Activist - Wed 18 Jun - Wed 2 Jul 2025

The Melbourne Cinémathèque & ACMI present

Rebellious Muse: Delphine Seyrig as Actor, Director and Activist

Film program

When

Wed 18 Jun – Wed 2 Jul 2025

See below for additional related events

Delphine Seyrig (1932–1990) never achieved a level of stardom comparative to many of her contemporaries, but her screen immortality was ensured through several iconic roles that foregrounded a fascinatingly enigmatic, elusive presence. The trademark opacity of her most famous performances, however, belies the richness, variety and forcefulness of her career, and the artistic dexterity which allowed her to transform the influences of mentors such as Tania Balachova, Jean Dasté, Michel Saint-Denis and Lee Strasberg into a seamless practice.

Her first major film role – a truly iconic performance in Alain Resnais’ Last Year at Marienbad (1961) – saw a return to France after time in New York and an immersion in the most exciting film and theatre of the era. Films with François Truffaut, Jacques Demy, Luis Buñuel and Joseph Losey followed over the next decade, while her theatre career flourished as a favoured collaborator on French productions of new plays by Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and Tom Stoppard.

However, a growing dissatisfaction with the patriarchal, often blatantly misogynistic nature of the material she performed, alongside a recognition of her place within an industry and culture which mythologised male genius at the expense of female voices, led to a conscious shift in career path.

The 1970s saw the formation, with pioneering video artist Carole Roussopoulos, of the feminist film collective Les Insoumuses (a pun which supplies the title of our season). To augment her increasingly activist political work, she began sustained artistic collaborations with Chantal Akerman, Marguerite Duras and Ulrike Ottinger which, alongside the projects she directed herself (such as 1981’s pointedly titled Be Pretty and Shut Up!), sought to articulate the feminist struggle in all its complexity and urgency. Her choice of roles – after 1976, all but one of which were for female directors – focused on projects which investigated the parallels (or interrogated the complicity) between performance as a professional vocation and the societal performance of femininity.

This season highlights her early, foundational work with Resnais and her collaborations with Duras – India Song (1975) and Baxter, Vera Baxter (1977) – as well her own ventures into filmmaking.

Where

Cinema 1, Level 2
ACMI, Fed Square

Plan your visit

Membership options

Mini membership
(3 consecutive weeks)
$30.5–36

Annual memberships
$174–325

SEE FULL OPTIONS

Films in this program

There are no upcoming related events at this time.

About Melbourne Cinémathèque

Australia's longest-running film society, Melbourne Cinémathèque screens significant works of international cinema in the medium they were created, the way they would have originally screened.

Melbourne Cinémathèque is self-administered, volunteer-run, not-for-profit and membership-driven. 

Learn more | View the 2025 program | See membership options

Melbourne Cinémathèque - Dirk Bogarde in a still from Victim

Join our newsletter

Get updates on the latest news, exhibitions, programs, special offers and more.

You might also like