Dans les années soixante, s'opère une révolution esthétique dans le cinéma argentin et ibéro­ américain aboutissant à l'avènement des Nouveaux Cinémas Latine-américains. Ces bouleversements artistiques influencent la nouvelle génération de cinéastes qui impulse dès 1995 un renouveau de la cinématographie nationale à travers le Nouveau Cinéma Argentin. Cette étude resitue l'intégration des réalisatrices dans les cinématographies ibéro-américaines depuis le début du vingtième siècle en insistant sur ces deux temps forts de 1'Histoire du cinéma. Ce travail analyse les apports thématiques et esthétiques des films de cinq réalisatrices argentines contemporaines . Ces longs-métrages donnent à voir des représentations subversives des identités de genre à l'écran. / In the sixties' the aesthetic revolution in Argentinian and Ibero-American Film led to the advent of New Latino-American Films. This artistic breakthrough irtfluenced the new generation of filmmakers who will be as soon as 1995 at the origin of the renewal of national cinematograph y through New Argentini an Films. This study deals with the integration of female filmmakers in Ibero-American Cinematography since the beginning of the twentieth century insisting on these two highlights of the history of cinema. This work is an analysis of the thematic and aesthetic contribution of five contemporary Argentinian female film producers. Their feature films offer subversive representations of gender identity on screen.

La présente recherche vise à explorer des formes multiples de silence représentées dans un film et à étudier la façon dont le silence a été perçu et conçu par des cinéastes femmes selon la perspective de l’analyse critique de discours (ACD). Dans ce contexte, nous avons choisi quatre longs métrages produits durant le XXIe siècle par quatre femmes cinéastes originaires de deux milieux culturels différents — à savoir les États-Unis et la Tunisie, à travers lesquels nous avons abordé notre problématique. Nous avons adopté l’approche développée par Fairclough (1989) qui consiste en trois étapes analytiques : description, interprétation et explication, combinant pragmatisme et analyse sémiotique. Cette recherche introduit également le concept de ‘voicing’ en référence aux signes sémiotiques et aux techniques cinématographiques qui sous-tendent la signification du silence et sa dimension pragmatique. Les résultats de l'étude démontrent que l'utilisation de ‘voicing’ s’avère un moyen efficace pour créer une méthode systématique d'analyse du silence au cinéma. Ils montrent également qu’en dépit des différences, des thèmes abordés et du contexte socio-culturel des cinéastes, il existe un dénominateur commun entre les quatre films, à savoir leur positionnement féministe ou pro-féministe.En outre, il ressort de notre analyse que les films en question constituent des barrières de résistance à l'hégémonie patriarcale du cinéma grand public qui sont fortement influencées par les perceptions individuelles des cinéastes, leurs expériences personnelles et le contexte culturel auquel elles appartiennent. / The current research aims to explore several of the manifold states of silence represented in film and to investigate how silence and silencing have been perceived and conceived by female filmmakers from a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) perspective.This is achieved by examining the case studies of four feature films produced in the twenty-first century by four female filmmakers from two different cultural backgrounds–namely the USA and Tunisia. Research questions are qualitatively applied to a corpus of four films, following Fairclough’s (1989) three analytic stages: description, interpretation and explanation, using pragmatics combined with semiotic analysis. The thesis also introduces the concept of ‘voicing’ with reference to the semiotic signs and film techniques that underpin the meaning of silence and its pragmatic dimension.The findings of the study show that using ‘voicing’ has proved to be effective in creating a systematic method of analyzing silence in films. They also show that even though the cinematographic practices, the themes dealt with and the socio-cultural background of the filmmakers may be different, there is a common denominator between the four films: their feminist or pro-feminist agenda.Further, it argues that the films under discussion may be considered as barriers of resistance to the hegemonic patriarchal mainstream cinema and that these barriers are strongly influenced by the filmmakers’ own individual perceptions, personal experiences and cultural background.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Interpretive textual analysis, informed by a feminist perspective, is applied to five independent films written and directed by female filmmakers in order to understand to what extent the rhetorical construction of motherhood as presented in the films deviates from or supports a patriarchal Western vision. This study provides a rich textual analysis of Amreeka (2009), Frozen River (2008), Waitress (2006), The Dead Girl (2006), and Lovely and Amazing (2001); five films that each considers the role of contemporary mothering as a central part of its plot. Each film has been distributed within ten years of the inception of this study, is considered an independent film, has received some degree of critical acclaim, and is written and directed by a female filmmaker. Using a feminist critical interpretive lens, this study investigates the public and private sphere identification of the mothers, the mother-child relationships, and the family systems that work to unveil a vision of motherhood in contemporary independent film and identify the extent to which this vision challenges or adheres to traditional representations. The readings of these films rely on theoretical insights of feminist film criticism and feminist theory. In addition, feminist rhetorical perspectives provide the framework to reveal the broader cultural implications of the representation of contemporary motherhood in public discourse. The analysis reveals a subversive reading of contemporary mothering characterized by the rejection of domesticity and other traditional mothering ideologies. Informed by resistance theory, the findings suggest the female filmmakers utilize the symbolic inversion tactic as a tool to resist their subordinate status. The subversive discourses give voice to female filmmakers attempting to negotiate power in a traditionally patriarchal forum by invoking a rhetoric of resistance. However, the rhetorical construction of the “indie” mother is characterized by maternal sacrifice and maternal autonomy which ultimately forces women to negotiate their mothering identity in relation to the hegemonic childrearing model of intensive mothering. The production of contradictory messages illustrates an attempt to adapt to existing conditions rather than transform the patriarchal system suggesting that independent film is a dynamic medium that both reflects hegemonic discourse while remaining open to ideological variance.