Published in 1949, The Second Sex became the bible of global feminism. An essential work that passionately advocates for gender equality, women's independence, and the liberation of morals. Today, how does this seminal work continue to resonate in our contemporary world? Conceived as an initiatory journey to the origins of Simone de Beauvoir's thinking, the film The Second Sex: In the Footsteps of Simone de Beauvoir takes us to the United States, to the places that inspired the philosopher and nourished her theories. An American road trip bringing together the worst and the best, predatory capitalism and mad love. A unique reinterpretation in the company of the great thinkers of our century.
Acting
Noémie Merlant's voiceover—intimate, searching, never didactic.
Direction
Masduraud and Urrea weave archive and landscape into living theory.
Writing
Treats viewers like adults who can handle complex intersectional argument.
Director
Nathalie Masduraud
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Beauvoir's 1947 U.S. tour, central to this film, was largely ignored by American media at the time—she was dismissed as 'Sartre's girlfriend' despite already having published four novels.
The directors chose Noémie Merlant partly because her role in Portrait of a Lady on Fire embodied the very 'becoming' Beauvoir theorized—casting as philosophical continuity.
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