Dagmar Gueissaz-Teufel
Born in 1941 in Tuttlingen, Germany, Dagmar Gueissaz Teufel is a documentary filmmaker whose films focus on women’s perspectives. Teufel directed six NFB films between 1982 and 1989.
His first film, Plenty of Nothing (Madame, vous avez rien, 1982), depicts the important role of women on farms, focusing on women who go through divorce and attempt to have the social and economic value of their work recognized. The Treadmill (Le Travail piégé, 1984) is a Studio D film that uncovers an invisible labour force of women who work in the isolation of their homes. Ignored by the law, unprotected by unions, one group of women overcame the system: by forming a cooperative-style workshop, they were able to improve their working conditions.
Passiflora (1985), co-directed with Fernand Bélanger, is a slow-paced, experimental portrait of Montreal’s “otherness” in 1984. Part documentary, part fiction, with animated sequences, the film could be split into two parts: day, when Pope John Paul II’s visit to the city is the predominant theme; and night, during which a Michael Jackson concert takes place. The filmmakers used the visits of these two famous figures as springboards to capture the broad diversity of Montrealers, and not just the ones who went on a pilgrimage to see these two very different icons. Passiflora is also a portrait of the people in charge of building, organizing and producing the events—as well as those left out or not involved in either of them. In The Fruit Machine: Twenty Years of Writings on Queer Cinema, scholar, critic and author Thomas Waugh wrote that “Passiflora may be the gayest film ever made in Canada.” It has been featured in several retrospectives in recent years.
In Les Polissons (1987), young people from Rouyn-Noranda reflect on the quality of our environment and what our planet will have become in the year 2001. L’Intelligence du coeur (1988) examines why a volunteer network created by women to transform the social fabric receives no recognition. A Time to Reap (Femmes en campagne, 1989), another Studio D film, depicts the victories of Quebec farm women who, through determination and solidarity, are getting the acknowledgement they have sought for so long.
Teufel’s work has been shown at dozens of festivals and screenings in North America and Europe, in addition to being studied in various academic publications on Canadian and Quebec cinema, such as M. Froger’s La textualité dans le cinéma d'essai documentaire québécois (2003) and Waugh’s The Romance of Transgression in Canada: Queering Sexualities, Nations, Cinemas (2006).
Dagmar Gueissaz-Teufel (2)
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Plenty of NothingDagmar Gueissaz-Teufel 1982 55 minHalf a million wives work with their husbands in family-run businesses, but most have no legal title to any part of the operation. This documentary focuses on several farm wives who are seeking their fair share of the family farm. In frank and friendly discussions with their husbands and with financial advisers, the women learn about co-ownership. The importance of having a legal arrangement becomes clear when a former farm wife tells how she lost everything she thought she owned when she and her husband divorced. Filmed in Québec's fertile Richelieu Valley, Plenty of Nothing encourages women to recognize the economic value of their work and to seek the legal recognition of their status and of their right to an equitable financial share. -
PassifloraFernand Bélanger & Dagmar Gueissaz-Teufel 1985 1 h 24 minMontreal, September 1984. Within a span of five days, Montreal’s Olympic Stadium hosts Pope John Paul II and Michael Jackson. A perfect opportunity to explore the impact of the media on the masses. With caustic irony, this film gives voice to people excluded by Church doctrine: the gay and lesbian community, and women who’ve had abortions or been abused. Beyond documentary, fiction or news report, Passiflora is above all a film that packs a punch, leaves a mark and makes an impression, happily blending analysis, animation, acting, humour and song.
