Paris Was a Woman
What the Critics are Saying
It’s enough to make you leave your spouse and move to Paris! — Time Out (New York)
“Time travel to golden ages doesn’t exist, but documentaries like ”Paris Was a Woman” — with their interviews, home movies, archival film and photographs — are the next best thing.” — Lawrence Van Gelder, The New York Times
“The documentary director Greta Schiller’s examination of Paris modernism gives this world of literary salons and unconventional bookshops a surprising amount of verve. Giants like Picasso, Joyce, Janet Flanner, Djuna Barnes, and Gertrude Stein come across as positively fun-loving, and Paris blooms like a rose.” — The New Yorker
Selected Festivals, Awards and TV Broadcasts
Theatrically released in Holland, USA, Germany, Spain, New Zealand, and the UK.
Best Documentary (Audience prize), Festival International de Films de Femmes, Paris
Best Documentary (Audience prize), Berlin Film Festival
TV Broadcast: Sundance Channel
Screened at over 50 international festivals, including London, Vancouver, Sao Paolo, Jerusalem, Seattle, Melbourne.
About the Film
“Paris Was a Woman” presents a dazzling portrait of the creative community of women writers, artists, photographers and editors who flocked to Paris in the early decades of the 20th century, when Paris was the undisputed cultural capital of the world.
Using groundbreaking research and newly discovered home movies, “Paris Was a Woman” uses intimate storytelling to weave interview with anecdote. The film recreates the mood and flavor of this female artistic community in the City of Light during its most magical era.
Included in this milieu are authors Colette, Djuna Barnes and Gertrude Stein, poets HD and Natalie Clifford Barney, painters Romaine Brooks and Marie Laurencin, editors Bryher, Alice B. Toklas, Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap, photographers Berenice Abbott and Gisele Freund, booksellers Sylvia Beach and Adrienne Monnier, and journalist Janet Flanner.
Screened at over 150 international festivals, including London, Vancouver, Sao Paolo, Jerusalem, Seattle and Melbourne. Theatrically released in Germany, Holland, USA, Spain, New Zealand, France and the UK.
Directed by Greta Schiller. Written by Andrea Weiss. Produced by Frances Berrigan, Greta Schiller, Andrea Weiss. Produced in association with Salzgeber Medien, ZDF/ARTE, VPRO, Eurimages.
