In Memory: Bérénice Reynaud

This message from Film/Video Dean Abigail Severance and former Dean Steve Anker was sent to the CalArts community about the passing of Bérénice Reynaud, longtime faculty member and curator of the Film at REDCAT series.

Dear CalArtians, 

With great sadness, we share that our dear colleague and friend Bérénice Reynaud died on Sunday, Sept. 17 after a multiyear battle with cancer. 

A curator, critic, and author, Bérénice taught in the School of Film/Video for more than 30 years with a brilliant, rigorous relationship to cinema that influenced generations of students. She was fiercely intelligent, loving, and a tireless advocate for the filmmakers, activists, and rebels that made up both her local and global family. 

Bérénice often said that teaching brought her the most joy in her life. Her students and colleagues meant everything to her. She was thoroughly dedicated to her work at CalArts, a passion that kept her fighting through many years of difficult treatments. 

Born and raised in France, Bérénice studied philosophy at Paris I-Sorbonne, cinema studies at NYU, and was a Helena Rubenstein fellow at the Whitney Museum Independent Studies Program. She was the author of New Chinas/New Cinemas (1999) and Hou Hsiao-hsien’s A City of Sadness (2002). A regular contributor to Senses of Cinema, she also published in Cahiers du cinéma, Sight & Sound, Film Comment, Afterimage, Le Monde diplomatique, and Cinemaya the Asian Film Quarterly, among many other journals, scholarly publications, encyclopedias, and catalog articles. 

As a correspondent for the San Sebastian International Film Festival and the Viennale, and board member of Filmforum LA, Bérénice was a central figure in the Los Angeles and international independent film communities, watching everything with an omnivorous curiosity, always finding joy in discovering new artists and championing their work. In the 1980s, she developed a deep interest in Chinese cinema, was a pioneer of the introduction of Chinese video art and documentary in the United States and France, and for many years served as Curatorial Adviser and member of the Programming Committee for the China Onscreen Biennial. In 2017, she curated a major retrospective of contemporary Chinese cinema for the Cinémathèque française. 

Bérénice was the founding co-curator, with Steve Anker, of the Film at REDCAT series from its inception in 2003. Together, Bérénice and Steve curated several hundred programs of work by international, documentary, narrative, and experimental media artists. Bérénice was especially dedicated to including underrepresented filmmakers, showing work by dozens of queer artists and artists of color, expanding the breadth and reach of Film at REDCAT. Following Steve’s retirement, she continued curating the series with great innovation with Thomas Eduardo (2020-2021) and Jheanelle Brown (since 2022). Bérénice’s passion and determination were essential factors in making REDCAT a key part of Los Angeles’ vibrant independent media culture.

As a curator, Bérénice also created exhibitions for Artists Space, The Collective for Living Cinema, MOMA, Museum of the Moving Image, UCLA Film & Television Archives, Cinémathèque française, and Festival d’Automne and the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume. She was one of the main organizers of Against Oblivion, the Chantal Akerman retrospective that took place in several Los Angeles venues and at New York’s BAM in 2016, and edited the Senses of Cinema dossier devoted to Akerman. 

Berenice’s teaching and mentoring was always timely and thoughtful. She played a key role in bringing students in direct conversation with such esteemed filmmakers as Agnes Varda, Isaac Julien, Chantal Akerman, Julie Dash, and many, many more. In response to the COVID quarantine, she quickly designed The Room, a seminar on confinement that was both a provocation and an invitation to students to think deeply about the moment. This summer, she was planning Fourteen Questions for Jean-Luc Godard, a deep dive into the filmmaker’s work following his death last year.

We’ve each received a deluge of condolences in the last 24 hours. It is staggering though not at all unexpected given Bérénice’s vast reach and influence. Students, former students, old and dear friends, artists she championed, colleagues, conspirators and cineastes from around the world have all shared their love and loss. Bérénice touched the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of artists and film lovers. Tenacious, totally dedicated and unerringly brilliant, she was truly one of a kind. 

On behalf of her CalArts colleagues, we want to thank Bérénice’s dear friends Minda Martin and Cheng-Sim Lim for their care and support of her over the years, especially during these last months. As plans develop, CalArts will share information about a remembrance event for Bérénice’s enormous community.

We miss you already, chère Bérénice.
 

Abigail Severance, Dean
Steve Anker, former Dean (2002-2014)
CalArts School of Film/Video