Maria Schneider, 1983

The 1983 French television interview with actor Maria Schneider has lost little of its relevance in the intervening 40 years. Schneider talks about abusive practices in the film industry and the vulnerable position of female actors in it. Though she doesn’t name it specifically, it is clear that one of the events she refers to is her traumatic experience on the set of Bertolucci’s Last Tango in Paris (1972). Everything she says about the experiences of herself and other women in an industry dominated by men feels uncomfortably familiar.

In these reenactments of the interview, everything appears to be the same—but is it? Elisabeth Subrin makes creative use of the archive material to bring it into the intersectional here and now.