93 minutes
Join us in the lobby at 6:00 PM for a festival reception catered by Baba’s (with wine and NA drinks)
Pourquoi Pas! (Why Not!) is an apt title for this scandalous French comedy about polyamory and bisexuality. It depicts the exploits of two men and one woman who cohabitate together in a run-down villa after escaping their unfulfilling lives. Watch young people search for meaning outside the confines of love’s often limited narratives.
Film Notes by Tristan Brossat
In the mid-1970s, Coline Serreau tackled her first work of fiction on subjects that were still taboo in French cinema: bisexuality and polyamory. With its ménage à trois made up of Alexa, Louis and Fernand, tucked away in a suburban home, Pourquoi pas! shook up social conventions. The screenplay was twice refused CNC’s “advance against earnings” funding––established in 1959 by the Minister for Cultural Affairs, André Malraux, to allow original films struggling for finance to see the light of day. Undeterred, Serreau showed her project to Antoinette Fouque, one of the pioneers of the Women’s Liberation Movement, who was meanwhile helping her to shoot the documentary Mais qu’est-ce qu’elles veulent?. It was third time lucky when the film came next before the commission, with one jury member threatening to resign if Pourquoi pas! was not supported. In December 1977, the threesome finally got to live out their affair on the big screen. It is sensitively performed by Christine Murillo and Mario Gonzalez, who would go on to enjoy significant careers in theatre, and Sami Frey, in a departure from his customary brooding romantic roles. Hailed by the critics, the film won numerous prizes and was well-received by the public in France and beyond. But television back then was still under the yolk of ORTF, the French Broadcasting and Television Office that, in 1975, did not seem disposed to allow this joyous and subversive utopia into viewers’ homes. The state channel FR3 that had agreed to part-fund the film withdrew on learning that it featured homosexuality. Unaired and eclipsed by the phenomenal success of Trois hommes et un couffin, Pourquoi pas! slowly fell into obscurity. It was high time to rediscover this important and gently subversive film.
Copy from Le chat qui fume. Restored in 4K in 2022 by Le chat qui fume at VDM laboratory, from the original negative.
Presented by Archives on Screen
Archives on Screen (AoS) brings rare, unseen archival films from around the globe to Minnesota. Co-founded in 2022 by Michelle Baroody and Maggie Hennefeld, AoS has worked with international film archives and local film venues to expose students, diverse audiences, and underserved populations to the richness of cinema history. We screen everything from silent films to contemporary features, focusing primarily on counter-cinemas, such as feminist and queer films, world cinema, and anti-colonial productions. Our events facilitate public education, community engagement, and open conversation about how the archives of film history can help us to imagine different worlds and alternative futures. Archives on Screen’s flagship program, Il Cinema Ritrovato on Tour, is a curated selection of films from Il Cinema Ritrovato, an annual international film festival that exhibits new restorations and rediscovered films in Bologna, Italy every summer. We also host a quarterly screening series at the Trylon Cinema in Minneapolis and regular screenings at the Heights Theater and other local venues. Learn more about Archives on Screen at archivesonscreen.org
Relased 1977
Directed by Coline Serreau