SynopsisDelphine SEYRIG interviews 24 French and American actresses including Jane Fonda, Barbara Steele, Ellen Burstyn, Shirley MacLaine about their professional experience as women, their parts and their relations with stage and screen directors and their technical teams. A rather negative view in 1976 of a profession that only allows stereotypical and alienating roles.

Program Note Delphine SEYRIG, who played major roles in Chantal AKERMAN\'s Jeanne Dielman and Marguerite DURAS\' Indian Song, was a prominent French actress and a feminist director who, like Carole ROUSSOPOULOS, worked on radical feminist documentaries in France in the 1970s. In the film, Be Pretty and Shut Up, she interviews Jane FONDA, Barbara STEELE, Ellen BURSTYN, Shirley MACLAINE, and other actresses who worked with the French Nouvelle Vague and Hollywood directors in the 1960s and 1970s.
 The dialogue among the actresses about typical female characters with limited roles, excessive sexualization of the female body, and the relationship between female characters in films are naturally developed into a serious discussion about “Why we need women’s cinema”. Even though the film presents a simple talking-head format, it provides an insight into the social prejudices, negative views, and isolation of the actresses and raises piercing and interesting questions about the ways in which actresses and images of women are treated in the film industry. [HONG So-in]