One of a handful of female outsider artists to earn praise from the early exponents of art brut, Aloïse Corbaz—born in modest circumstances in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1886; institutionalized as a schizophrenic in 1918; and kept under psychiatric observation until her death in 1964—is portrayed here by two of the premiere European actresses of their respective generations: Isabelle Huppert, who plays Corbaz as a ruminative, searching young woman, and Delphine Seyrig, astonishingly committed as the elder artist.

Newly restored by Cinémathèque Française and produced by Paul Vecchiali, de Kermadec’s sophomore feature is an ideal introduction to an unjustly forgotten giant of post–New Wave French cinema. In the same year of the release of Aloïse, de Kermadec would serve as one of the producers on Seyrig and Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.

Restored in 4K by TF1 Studio, La Cinémathèque française and Cinémathèque suisse at Hiventy and Transperfect laboratories, from the original negatives. With thanks to Several Futures.

Accompanied by Colors Folly, documented by Abraham Ségal in 1986.

An archival gem: Delphine Seyrig and visionary painter Mary Barnes talk together about the “madness” of Aloïse Corbaz and its experiential links to pictorial expression.

With thanks to The Simone de Beauvoir Audiovisual Center, a feminist audio-visual archive founded in 1982 by Delphine Seyrig, Ioana Wieder, and Carole Roussopoulos.