Festival de la Francophonie • Film screening: Celles qui luttent (Sisters of Wrestling) with Chantal Nadeau

In honor of the Journeé internationale des droits des femmes (International Women’s Day), the Alliance Française de Chicago is honored to partner with the Délégation du Québec à Chicago and the Consulat générale du Canada à Chicago to host a screening of Québécoise director Sarah Baril Guadet’s 2022 feature-length documentary Celles qui luttent (Sisters of Wrestling).

The film explores the status of women in the Quebecois wrestling world. While Loue juggles her roles as mother and wrestler, Azaelle tries to take advantage of her last moments in the ring and LuFisto aspires to reach new heights at the age of 42. The documentary paints an intimate and sensitive picture of these women for whom wrestling is both a passion and an outlet.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with Dr. Chantal Nadeau, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies & Criticism and Interpretative Theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, moderated by Colleen Duke, Senior Foreign Policy & Diplomacy Services Officer at the Canadian Consulate.

Guests will enjoy a post-screening reception featuring complimentary Quebecois beer!

Doors open at 6:00 p.m. Please enter via 54 W Chicago Ave. Non-alcoholic options will be available.

About Chantal Nadeau

Dr. Chantal Nadeau

Chantal Nadeau is Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies and Criticism and Interpretative Theory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her scholarship centers on ways that sexuality is bound up with the legal, political, and visual (de)formations of the postcolonial. Author of Fur Nation: From The Beaver to Brigitte Bardot (Routledge 2001), her research on cinema, popular culture, and legal queer cultures has appeared in journals such as GLQ, Multitudes, Screen, and Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies. Always driven by geographical locations, she co-edited a special issue of GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies: “Queering the Middle: Sexual Diasporas, Race, and a Queer Midwest” (2014). Her second monograph Queer Courage argues that the language of courage marks the arrival of a new paradigm for LGBTQ subjects, one that signals a legal and political shift from outlawness (pride) to citizenship (courage). Nadeau is at work on two new research projects that explore narratives of bodily integrity and sexual borders in films and visual arts.

About Colleen Duke

Colleen Duke

Colleen Duke is a Senior Foreign Policy and Diplomacy Services Officer at the Consulate General of Canada in Chicago. Her areas of focus include academic and cultural relations, public affairs, communications and digital media, agriculture policy, security and defence, and human rights issues, including Indigenous and 2SLGBTQIA+.\

Prior to joining Global Affairs Canada, Ms. Duke worked at a number of museums in Chicago and Washington D.C. She has a BA in Art History and Economics from the University of Chicago and an MBA from Northwestern University.

About the Director

Sarah Baril Gaudet

Sarah Baril Gaudet is a documentary filmmaker based in Montreal. Originally from Abitibi-Témiscamingue, she completed a bachelor’s degree in cinema at UQÀM in 2016, where she received the grant Meilleur espoir documentaire (ACIC-ONF). She then directed the short films Là où je vis (FNC 2017) and Les bienveillants (Hot Docs 2022), as well as the feature-length documentary Passage (RIDM 2020). These films have traveled to numerous festivals and won several awards.

Director’s Note

En janvier 2020, je découvre l’existence de Femmes Fatales, l’une des promotions de lutte féminine les plus importantes en Amérique du Nord. Prise d’un profond désir d’explorer cet univers qui m’était jusque-là totalement inconnu, je décide d’acheter mon billet pour leur spectacle annuel ayant lieu à Ottawa. Tout au long de l’évènement, je suis subjuguée par l’athlétisme et l’audace des lutteuses. […] Durant cette soirée mémorable, je réalise à quel point la lutte féminine est un vecteur d’empowerment pour la femme. Dès lors, j’ai eu la puissante envie de rendre hommage à ces combattantes du ring qui se démarquent de l’idée de la femme fragile et docile ancrée dans notre société.

In January 2020, I discovered the existence of Femmes Fatales, one of the most important women’s wrestling promotions in North America. Seized by a deep desire to explore this universe that was until then completely unknown to me, I decided to buy my ticket for their annual show taking place in Ottawa. Throughout the event, I was captivated by the athleticism and audacity of the wrestlers. […] During this memorable evening, I realized to what extent women’s wrestling is a vector of empowerment for women. From then on, I had the powerful desire to pay tribute to these female ring fighters who stand out from the idea of ​​the fragile and docile woman anchored in our society.

Get here

The Alliance francaise de Chicago is one block from the CTA Red line stop at Chicago Avenue. Best bus routes are the 22 on Clark and the 66 on Chicago Avenue.

Parking Information

• The easiest: $12 for 12 hours at InterPark at 100 W Chestnut St. All you need is the rebate ‘chaser" card we give participants.