Private Project

Calamity Jane & Delphine Seyrig: A Story

"Calamity Jane & Delphine Seyrig: A Story" Film by Babette Mangolte, © 2019, 87 minutes avec Son original (Anglais et Français)
The film is a homage to Delphine Seyrig and her fascination for the book Calamity Jane’s Letters to her Daughter. Those letters are from a mother to an absent daughter which became a feminist landmark in the late 1970 and the source for Seyrig’s film project about Calamity Jane’s sensibility and insight about life. The reading of those letters to a daughter who doesn't receive them as they are not sent permits a self-reflection about feminism and motherhood and is a homage to Seyrig's creativity and a long-term commitment among women in the 21st century to share other women stories.

  • Babette MANGOLTE
    Director
  • Babette MANGOLTE
    Writer
    Research and quotes from Delphine Seyrig writings as well as quotes from Calamity Jane Letters to her daughter are incur[orated in my script. i
  • Babette MANGOLTE
    Producer
  • With Delphine Seyrig, Stella Foote, Claire Wolverton, Duncan Youngerman, JJ Wilson, & Julia Lynn Trotta reading the letters of Calamity Jane to her daughter from the edition from 1976 by Shameless Hussy Press, San Francisco, California.
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Experimental, Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 27 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    September 6, 2019
  • Country of Filming:
    France, United States
  • Language:
    English, French
  • Shooting Format:
    2K DCP (shot HD and 16mm)
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
  • Cinema du Reel, March 2020
    Paris
    France
    March 19, 2020
    Premier at a film festival
    The Cinema du reel festival was cancelled the next day
  • Museum Reina Sofia in. Madrid Spain
    Madrid
    Spain
    teh film is Ain a show about Delpine Seyrig feminist activities
Distribution Information
  • Centre Audio Visuel Simone de Beauvoir
    Distributor
    Country: France
    Rights: Theatrical
Director Biography - Babette MANGOLTE

Babette Mangolte (US born in France) is an experimental filmmaker and photographer who is know internationally and lives in New York. Among her recent films are Edward Krasiński’s Studio (2012) and films about Trisha Brown’s choreography Roof Piece on the High Line (2011 / 2012) and Staging Lateral Pass (1985/2013) and Steve Paxton at DIA (2014) and I, Nous, I or Eye, us (2014). She shot in April 2015 at WIELS Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker’s Work/Travail/Arbeid (2016). The film is mastered but has not been released yet in an agreement with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker.
Her last feature is Calamity Jane & Delphine Seyrig: A Story, (2019) 87 minutes 2 K

She also works with installations creating architectural spaces exploring different modes of interactivity for the spectators: in 2013 she did TOUCHING III in Inhotim, Bela Horizonte, MG Brazil and Reading Yvonne Rainers’s “this is the story of a woman who…” (2013, Whitney Museum, in Rituals of Rented Island curated by Jay Sanders).
Her solo show I = Eye at Kunsthalle in Vienna curated by Luca lo Pinto comprised a new version of TOUCHING IV and a new installation Fragments and Filmmaking and the catalog for I = Eye, a selection of Mangolte’s writings edited by Luca Lo Pinto, was published by Sternberg Press ISBN 978-3-95679-418-6.

Her most recent solo show Spaces TO SEE opened on March 1st and closed on September 15th 2019 curated by Sebastien Faucon at the Rochechouart Museum of Contemporary Art that was reviewed in many art publications. The show occupied three floors of the museum set in a Renaissance castle in Rochechouart in Limousin, in the center of France and show a vast selection of photographs, films and installations as well as new works.

Recently she also wrote two texts reflecting on Chantal Akerman’s work, Chantal My Friend published in Artforum (January 2016), and Chantal Akerman and Music published in a shorter version in Mouvement Research. She had several important interviews published recently in Art Press in 2018 and in London in 2019.
Her next writing project is a short book about photography.

For further details check: www.babettemangolte.org

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

I have written a text about the making of the film that is 7n pages long nd has been published in. the catalog of Cinema du reel in 2020 (in both English and in French translation)>

The film is a homage to Delphine Seyrig and her fascination for the book Calamity Jane’s Letters to her Daughter. Those letters are from a mother to an absent daughter which became a feminist landmark in the late 1970 and the source for Seyrig’s film project about Calamity Jane’s sensibility and insight about life. The reading of those letters to a daughter who doesn't receive them as they are not sent permits a self-reflection about feminism and motherhood and is a homage to Seyrig's creativity and a long-term commitment among women in the 21st century to share other women stories.

With Delphine Seyrig, Stella Foote, Claire Wolverton, Duncan Youngerman, JJ Wilson,
& Julia Lynn Trotta reading the letters of Calamity Jane to her daughter from the edition from 1976 by Shameless Hussy Press, San Francisco, California.

Master in HD from HD shooting and 16mm film from 1983 and documents from the 19th century.
--------
Production history:
The script relied on archives from Delphine Seyrig’s private papers about her film project available thanks to Duncan Youngerman, her son and the Centre Audiovisuel Simone de Beauvoir. The shooting in 1983 and editing between 2018-2019 is by Babette Mangolte © 2019 BM
The original 16mm production is by Delphine Seyrig in 1983 working with Mangolte as cinematographer and editor, Helen Kaplan as sound recordist and Mark Daniels as assistant camera. Mangolte handled the direction of production and the film processing and work print from a movie lab in New York City in 1983. A telecine made in 2010 of the 16 mm footage was made by the Centre Simone de Beauvoir, which was used for a pre-edit in 2011. The current film was made starting 2018 and a new 2 K scan of the 1983 footage was made in August 2019, for the mastering of the final edit finished on September 5, 2019.
Special thanks to Duncan Youngerman, Nicole Ferrer Fernández from the Centre Simone de Beauvoir and Etel Adnan who told me to contact JJ Wilson at the Sitting Room in Sonoma County. I also want to thank Giovanna Zapperi and Nataša Petrešin-Bachelez for their support.