a political story of love and regard

Iris Brey’s first series, “Split” tells the story of the birth of a love story between two women and the emergence of new life paths. It is also a series which evokes everyday life, the feminine experience and offers new images.

In a castle in Touraine, Anna, played by Alma Jodorowsky, meets Eve, played by Jehnny Beth. The first is a stuntwoman, the second an actress. During the filming of a film dedicated to Musidora, actress, silent film director and first vamp in the history of cinema, Anna is Eve’s understudy. Split, available on France.tv Slash from November 24, opens with the first contact of two women who look alike and are preparing to collaborate, or even more.

Because the series opens almost traditionally with a first sight scene. Anna falls in love with Eve, and vice versa. But if Eve is a lesbian, Anna has never had a relationship with a woman. She is also in a relationship with Nathan who works as a cinematographer on the set.

Far from being a story of prevented love, Split tells of an exit from heterosexuality. Anna, who is then 30 years old, discovers other romantic possibilities, and other life trajectories, like all the characters in the series. Iris Brey thus delivers, in five short episodes, a love story with a fresh perspective and questions our horizons and our ways of being a family.

Missing images

Author of the book Sex and the series and another try, The female gaze, the journalist and author Iris Brey creates her first fiction with the desire to offer the public images that are rarely presented to them, “missing images”. The plot, built around a lesbian love story – between two adult women – already captures this rarity. She takes hold of it all the more Split offers representation happy. For the director, this story which stays away from drama is deeply “political” And shows, contrary to the most worn-out plot devices, that lesbian joy is possible.

Throughout the five episodes, Split also shows actions that could be considered harmless, for example cleaning a menstrual cup. The series also shows scenes experienced by many people but largely associated with taboos. Iris Brey thus puts on the screen the questions of abortion and miscarriage, questions rarely raised in audiovisual works and which are nevertheless an integral part of the female experience.

By staying as close as possible to the female characters, Split brings to light on the screen what the heroine of a fiction experiences and transmits the experience of the female body as a social and collective biological body. The split screen technique, which allows several images to be shown simultaneously on the same screen and which also gives its name to the series, makes it possible to reinforce this transmission of the sensations and experience of Anna and Eve. The division of the screen also makes it possible to renew the way we look at romantic relationships, to create an equitable desire, without face-to-face, without domination.

Create differently

Many scenes in the series take place, like a mise en abyme, on the film set where the two protagonists meet. This part of the plot makes it possible to make visible some of the abuses that regularly occur in the cinema industry. Iris Brey notably shows a scene where, despite the distress of Eve who does not seem capable of carrying out a shot, the director of the film does not ask to cut the shot, does not perceive the limits being exceeded.

In order to guarantee the best possible working conditions for the members of the cast, an intimacy coordinator followed the creation of the series Split, and more particularly that of the sex scenes. From writing to production, such monitoring ensures the safety of the actresses and ensures that they agree to carry out the requested actions. The documentary Sex is comedy directed by Edith Chapin and which comes out at the same time as Split on France.tv Slash, shows the exercise of this profession on the set of Iris Brey. A way of reminding us that new images are born from reorientation but also from the multiplication of views.

Gender : Comedy
Director: Iris Brey
Actors: Alma Jodorowsky, Jehnny Beth, Ralph Amoussou
Country : France
Duration : 5 x 20 minutes
Exit : 24 november 2023
Streamer : France.tv Slash

Synopsis: On the set of a film, Anna, a 30-year-old stuntwoman, falls in love with the star she is dubbing. She, who thought she was happy in her relationship, will she have the courage to leave heterosexuality to confront this overwhelming desire?