Helene Fiche

Hélène Fiche is a renowned French historian specializing in the history of representations and gender relations. A holder of the agrégation in history and a former student of the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Lyon, she holds a doctorate from the Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Her research, conducted at the Centre d'Histoire Sociale des Mondes Contemporains (CHS), explores sociocultural transformations through the lens of cinema.

In 2023, she defended a highly acclaimed thesis on the deconstruction of gender norms in French cinema between 1969 and 1982. This academic work laid the foundation for her major publication in 2025 with Éditions L'Épreuve des faits: Ce que le féminisme fait au cinéma. Les années 1970, de l'émancipation à la contre-attaque patriarcale (What Feminism Does to Cinema. The 1970s, from Emancipation to the Patriarchal Counterattack).

Through the analysis of popular hits, Hélène Fiche dissects the confrontation between ‘women of action’ and ‘men in crisis.’ She demonstrates that the patriarchal counterattack, often driven by the fear of losing privileges, has historically been more clamorous than the emancipation it seeks to oppose. As an associate researcher at the CHS, she provides essential insight into the evolution of power dynamics, proving that social representations are never immutable.

Hélène Fiche's residency project marks a creative transition from historical analysis to speculative fiction. Drawing on her expertise at the Centre d'Histoire Sociale (CHS), she explores the place of women in science-fiction cinema—a genre often saturated by male archetypes and a persistent 'male gaze.'

The central objective is to write an original screenplay that deconstructs the clichés of the 'objectified woman' or the 'passive survivor,' placing women of action at the heart of futuristic narratives. Hélène Fiche transposes her research on the 'patriarchal counterattack': how do power dynamics reconfigure themselves in the worlds of tomorrow?

By blending scientific rigor with cinematic storytelling, this work aims to propose new political imaginaries. The goal is to transform the findings of her 2025 publication into a forward-looking reflection: if the future is a blank page, why are gender inequalities so often redrawn upon it? This residency serves as a laboratory for reinventing female agency and emancipation through the codes of space opera and social anticipation.