Carole Roussopoulos

Carole Roussopoulos (25 May 1945 – 22 October 2009) was a Swiss film director and feminist who was primarily known for her pioneering early documentary films of the Women's liberation movement in France. She made approximately 150 documentaries during the course of her career.

Early life Carole de Kalbermatten was born 25 May 1945 in Lausanne, Switzerland. She grew up in Sion, Switzerland in the canton of Valais. In 1970, at the urging of her friend the author Jean Genet, she purchased a light-weight Sony Portapak camera and began to make documentaries. That same year she made the documentary film Genet parle d'Angela Davis (known in English as Angela Davis Is at Your Mercy) about the American political activist Angela Davis.

In 1995 she moved back to Switzerland to document Swiss subjects that she felt were not receiving enough attention. The name, Les Insoumuses, is a neologism combining "insoumise" (disobedient) and "muses." The collective produced several videos together, focusing on representations of women in the media, labour, and reproductive rights.

Select filmography LIP (series of six videos, 1973–1976) Y'a qua pas baiser (1973) Les Prostituées de Lyon parlent (1975) Maso et Miso vont en bateau (1975) SCUM Manifesto (1976) Debout! Une histoire du mouvement de libération des femmes (1999) Cinquantenaire du deuxième sexe: 1949-1999 (2001)

Death Roussopoulos died on 22 October 2009 in Molignon, Switzerland.

Recognition In 2001 Roussopoulos was named a Knight (or Chevalier) of the Legion of Honor in France for her thirty-two years of service to film.

Legacy In 2008 Tristan Aymon did the documentary film C comme Carole, and in 2011 the Swiss filmmaker Emmanuelle de Riedmatten made a documentary about Roussopoulos's life called Carole Roussoupolos, une femme à la caméra.

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