Lust for Life

In this 2025 selection from Chantier des Francos, we shine the spotlight on Jeanne Bonjour. A singer, songwriter, and performer from Rennes, Jeanne Bonjour stands out for her boundless energy and her danceable yet melancholic style. Having made her breakthrough with her first EP, 13 ans (2021), she has already performed at prestigious venues such as Printemps de Bourges, Trans Musicales, We Love Green, and MaMA.

A concert film by Bárbara Tinoco, filmed live at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, Portugal. Bárbara Tinoco is the youngest Portuguese artist to sell out the country’s largest arena, taking the stage with a magical, theatrical, but also very moving show.

Profile of choreographer, composer and performer Meredith Monk, recorded on location in her home base, New York City. Monk discusses some ideas underlying her work: her attraction to the eloquence of the human voice, and the direct communication made possible by the abstract qualities of music; her emphasis on the poetic rather than the political; her belief in the power of images; her willingness to take risks. She describes her experiences in working in different media, such as audio recordings, films, and videos, and the challenge of weaving them together.

How Cardi B became a household name and a legend in her own time.

All too often, every great female rock musician has to answer a predictable question - what is it like being a girl in a band? For many, the sight of a girl shredding a guitar or laying into the drums is still a bit of a novelty. As soon as women started forming their own bands they were given labels - the rock chick, the girl band or one half of the rock 'n' roll couple. Kate Mossman aims to look beyond the cliches of fallen angels, grunge babes and rock chicks as she gets the untold stories from rock's frontline to discover if it has always been different for the girl in a band.

This fascinating and retrospective look at the music of the outspoken and multitalented Lydia Lunch represents every stage of her varied career, with featured songs such as "I Woke Up Screaming" from her Teenage Jesus and the Jerks days. Other songs spanning the decades in this collection include "Freud in Flop," "Sorry for Behaving So Badly," "Dead River," "Solo Mystico," "Summon," "Violence Is the Sport of God" and many more.

In April 2008, LRS toured across the USA and met some amazing female noise artists. This is what it is like to be a girl of noise.

A celebration of music and rallying cry that takes viewers on a journey across generations, eras, and genres, anchored by a female chorus of musical icons, whose songs, voices, and activism provided inspiration for the past and current fight for equality for all.

A biography of artist Frida Kahlo, who channeled the pain of a crippling injury and her tempestuous marriage into her work.

Four friends search for love and happiness while working at a California sandwich shop.

In 1971, graduate student Gloria Orenstein received a call from Surrealist artist Leonora Carrington that sparked a lifelong journey into art, ecofeminism and shamanism. This short film uses art, animation and storytelling to celebrate this wild adventure. Now more than 40 years later, award-winning Dr. Gloria Feman Orenstein is a feminist art critic and pioneer scholar of women in Surrealism and ecofeminism in the arts. Her delightful tale brings alive an often unseen history of women in the arts.

Follows three young millennials as they form a wholehearted ménage à trois, each of them going through a moment of transition: Fun-loving Marcello from under the thumb of his Italian soap star father, soulful French-Iranian actor Nassim toward a more fulfilling career, and artist Christine through the grief following the death of her grandfather. The trio finds joy together by joining political protests, making art, and falling deeper into their unconventional love, until Marcello must return to Italy.

Single dad Richard meets Christine, a starving artist who moonlights as a cabbie. They awkwardly attempt to start a romance, but Richard’s divorce has left him emotionally damaged. Meanwhile, Richard’s sons—one a teenager, the other 6-years-old—take part in clumsy experiments with the opposite sex.

An eager young artist receives a disturbing introduction to the art world during the delivery of a controversial sculpture.

In an industry that is becoming increasingly competitive, what drives indie filmmakers to keep creating their art, even when there is no promise of money or fame? CREATE OR DIE explores the insatiable passion to create despite the overwhelming odds through the lens of South Carolina writer and filmmaker David Axe, as he and his band of cast and crew head out into the backwoods of Georgia to shoot his low budget passion project ACORN. But when tragedy strikes on set, doubt and tension threaten to bring an end to their production and their dreams.

Frida Kahlo began to paint in 1925 while recovering from a streetcar accident that left her permanently disabled. Many of her 200 paintings directly relate to her experiences with physical pain. They also chronicle her turbulent relationship with artist Diego Rivera. Today Kahlo's work is critically and monetarily as prized as that of her male peers, sometimes more so.

Sangaile, a 17-year-old spending the summer at her parents’ lakeside villa, becomes drawn to a free-spirited girl she meets at a nearby aeronautical show. As they grow closer, she begins to confront her fears and embrace a connection that encourages her to pursue her passion for flight.

A book artist, Whitney Taylor, is doomed to repeat history in a most grotesque way when she unleashes a demon after drawing it.

A look at the extensive work of the Austrian multimedia artist VALIE EXPORT. Her role as a key feminist figure and mediator between the international women’s movement and the artistic avant-garde and pioneer are at the center of the film.

Chronicles the extraordinary life of artist Felicia DeRosa, who came out as transgender at the age of 41. With her life, career, and marriage potentially at risk, Felicia embarks on a journey towards authenticity and self-acceptance.