If you’ve ever been to a press screening, you know that film criticism remains a male-dominated field. Last year, the Cannes Film Festival was criticized for failing to nominate a single female director for the Palme D’or prize. At this year’s Oscars, 132 men were nominated for awards, and only 32 women. Cinema needs more space for strong feminist voices, and a new digital quarterly is hoping to help create some.
Named after the title character in French New Wave director Agnes Varda’s Cléo de cinq à sept, Cléo is a new female-headed quarterly digital journal that aims to create a dialogue about feminism and cinema. The mag was inspired in part by the lack of female voices in film criticism. Writes editor and founder Kiva Reardon in her first Editor’s Letter, “The aim of Cléo is not to define feminism or feminist films, but rather treat the ever-increasingly disparaged term as a powerful and organic concept; a movement that can provide rich critical fodder.”
The theme of the first issue is “Flesh,” and it includes pieces on Leos Carax’s Holy Motors, sex work as captured in two documentary films, the body politics of Zero Dark Thirty, and more.
The theme of the next issue will be Home, and they’re accepting submissions now until May 1st.