Grace An

Grace An was commissioned to write a catalogue essay for the Cinémathèque Française, France's premier film institution, which is launching its first exhibition devoted to a non-male filmmaker: Agnès Varda. The essay explored Varda's "revolutionary" short films during the 1960s, including Black Panthers and Salut les Cubains. The exhibit will open October 2023 and close in January 2024.

An was also commissioned to write a short piece about the film Annie colère (Blandine Lenoir, 2022) for a special issue of Imaginaires (formerly French Film for Historians) dedicated to reproductive politics and care. An is a member of the journal's advisory board.

Associate Professor of French and Cinema Studies Grace An co-edited a special issue of French Screen Studies on French documentary film and the ethics of care since 1968. Articles in the issue explore films that addresse topics including education, migration and refugees, disability, incarceration, and postcolonial trauma. An authored the article "Care across divides: militant abortion and film around the Veil Law," which discusses the ways feminists and activist doctors sought alternative practices of reproductive care and justice during the years that led to the legalization of abortion in 1975. Reframing abortion as a labor of care, the filmmakers filmed an ethics of care avant la lettre, just years before the ethics of care was conceived during the 1980s in the U.S., yet developed eventually in France. This article benefitted from the insight and research conducted by Amelia Connelly, Lillian Enoch, Skylar Kleinman, Alison Simonds, Daisy Vollen, and Kiki Widran during the first Junior Practicum (Fall 2020). French Screen Studies is the only English-language academic journal to focus exclusively on French cinema and media.