The Cinema of Refusal

The events of May ’68 profoundly influenced francophone cinema aesthetics. However, English-language studies typically concentrate on two areas: the impact on established figures of the nouvelle vague, such as Jean-Luc Godard, who reinvented his filmmaking with new techniques of dialectical montage, and the politically engaged documentary cinema known as cinéma militant.

This project investigates the gap between these two trends by focusing on emerging, independent, and experimental francophone filmmakers active from 1968 to 1978. These filmmakers responded to the political climate with innovative approaches to film form and narrative. Following Nicole Brenez, who argues that post-68 cinema in France marks a new chapter in film history characterized by a drive to experiment, the project develops a new conceptual framework to relate the period's aesthetic developments to the political ethos of May ’68. This is achieved by referencing the concept of "refusal" as detailed by the Comité d'action étudiants-écrivains in 1968.