The Super 8 Years / Les Années Super 8

In 2022, Annie Ernaux, winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, together with her son David Ernaux-Briot, created a wistful cine-memoir composed of super-8 family footage shot between 1972 and 1981. This dreamy documentary, which premiered to critical acclaim in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, written and narrated by Ernaux herself, tells of a time when the author was in her thirties and raising two children.

Those familiar with Ernaux’s novels will recognise some overarching themes (such as female emancipation and domestic life) embedded against the backdrop of French current affairs at the time (Georges Pompidou’s death, Simone Veil’s defence of abortion rights etc.).

As part of the Women Shaping the World strand at the Institut francais d’Ecosse.