Synopsis
Being thrown down a flight of stairs, hit by a car or beaten up is the everyday life for stuntwomen. We follow Virginie, Petra and Estelle during training sessions and on film sets in France and the US. What does all this pretend-violence do to their bodies and minds? There is always a trade-off between the desire to perform as realistically as possible and their own boundaries. Scenes with cars are spectacular, but the roles in which they are beaten up are much harder to watch. Few action movies have female heroes so they usually play the role of victims. Stuntwomen are hired to endure violence, while the task of their male colleagues is to inflict it.
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Director
Elena Avdija
Born in 1987, Elena Avdija graduated in sociology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences) in Paris. After a master's degree in documentary filmmaking at the INA, she worked as an assistant director, developing scripts for historical documentaries, notably for Point du Jour and Arte in Paris. Upon her return to Switzerland, she specialized in casting extras and small roles for series and feature films. This part of her work highlights her interest in the professions that evolve in the shadow of the film industry. Elena has also produced and directed two short documentaries, D'ICI OU DE LÀ-BAS? (2013) and OPTION: THÉÂTRE ! (2017). STUNTWOMEN is her first feature documentary.