‘Terra Femme’: A live-narrated film screening at the Athena Center
The Athena Center recently hosted a live screening of “Terra Femme,” with filmmaker Courtney Stevens narrating her decade-long journey to uncover untold archival stories of explorative women traveling in a time when that was deemed abnormal.
Photography by Jeanine Huang/The Barnard Bulletin
By Sydnie Loeb
December 9, 2024
“Women once held the same rights as land,” said filmmaker Courtney Stevens in her live narration for her film “Terra Femme,” which screened Thursday, November 14 at Barnard’s Athena Center. This intimate event marked one of many of Athena’s film screenings and author Q&As that have been going on throughout the fall semester. Stevens, a filmmaker, world traveler, and professor brings her work, intelligence, and creativity to Barnard as a part of the Artemis Rising Foundation Filmmaker Fellowship Program.
This fellowship program invites established filmmakers and industry practitioners like Stevens to teach courses at Barnard. Stevens’ Fall 2024 class “The Archival Imagination: Found Footage Filmmaking” explores the usage of archival material to uncover stories and perspectives that may have otherwise been hidden. According to Stevens, she did this through her film Terra Femme.
The film, a New York Times Critic’s Pick, examines the role of women in the history of travel and filmmaking. Using archival footage from the 19th century, Steven believes she brings to life a genre of film that would have otherwise been overlooked. The film combines home movies all shot by women depicting travel and community. These home movies challenge the assumption that women cannot record, look at, and interpret the world the way men can. Each movie and character highlights a unique perspective.
However, it was not always Stevens’ intention to use this film to bring this archival footage to life. In the Q&A portion of the screening, she mentions how the film was originally meant to focus on India’s British colonial rule — she actually found the archival footage by accident.
During her research, Stevens stumbled across footage from a woman named Mrs. Dixon in her file, who lived in and traveled throughout the 1920s. Dixon’s footage was donated under her husband’s name. It depicted her travels across India, the Arctic Circle, and other regions, which was very unusual for a time when women often only occupied a domestic space. The film returns to Dixon’s footage as its main focus but also follows other 19th-century women exploring other parts of the world or their home communities.
Through live narration, Stevens is presenting the film the way that the original footage was shown (if it was shown) during its time, silent clips of home videos but with a narrator telling the story. She recalls not wanting to take the stories from these women as her own, but rather try to replicate their original showings. Having shown and spoken the film around 60 times live, she says she has it memorized, and the cues in the music tell her when to speak. She believes this liveness adds something very special to the film, and audience members agree.
“The live narration added a sense of intimacy,” shared attendee Aubrey Rogers (BC ‘28). “I felt like I was sharing an experience with her rather than watching something she had created, which made it very special.”
As Stevens’ narration tries to promote, the film is also thematically focused on the “female gaze.” Steven questions in her film whether “women see the world differently,” as men’s home videos from the time differ greatly from the ones she explores in “Terra Femme.” She describes the films by women as more detailed, showing hallways, workshops, laundry rooms, and minor spaces where life often goes unrecorded. “Seeing all of this female adventure frozen in history by the film was a unique and impactful experience,” said Rogers.
The Athena Center provided students and viewers with a very unique experience because this film is unable to be streamed or bought anywhere. Even though the only way to view this film today is through the live renditions by Stevens herself, the Athena Center provides many opportunities for students to experience something special and one-of-a-kind like this. Stay tuned with the Athena Center for more information about upcoming opportunities like the Athena Film Festival.