Discovering Simone de Beauvoir

Join us for a premiere screening of Seeking Simone, a short film by Heather van Heerwaarden.

The Second Sex caused a scandal in Paris in 1949. What was so radical about the ideas in this book?  Simone de Beauvoir insisted on freedom for herself and all women. The film begins in Melbourne with a young student discovering The Second Sex in 1989. Travel to Paris in 2026 on a quest to find out what a bookseller by the Seine, a student from the Sorbonne, the translators of The Second Sex and others think of her ideas now. 

Screening followed by Q&A session with Director Heather van Heerwaarden and Véronique Duche, French Professor at University of Melbourne.

Heather van Heerwaarden is a Melbourne based filmmaker with a Masters of Arts from Melbourne University. She majored in French and also studied cinema from around the world.  She has been making short films for ten years commissioned by various festivals and events including the Bastille Day French Festival (BDFF). In 2021 she produced Caudalie featuring French winemaker Dominique Portet commissioned by the BDFF and supported by the Victorian government.  She also made a series of short films including Picasso at the NGV (2022) for the BDFF. Her short films have screened at the Sun Cinema, in shipping containers and online as part of various festivals and multicultural events.

Véronique Duché is the A.R. Chisholm chair of French at the University of Melbourne. Her research spans the history and theory of the novel, literary translation, and contemporary theatre, with a particular interest in the circulation of texts, ideas, and performances across languages and cultures. She has published extensively on literary translation and French literature.