“Because actors aren’t taken seriously, are they?” says actress Maria Schneider in an interview on the TV show Cinéma Cinémas. The conversation unexpectedly takes one a different tone: while expressing her criticism of work practices in the film industry, Schneider is asked to comment on the controversial film Last Tango in Paris (1972), for which she had to film a rape scene that traumatised and haunted Schneider for the rest of her life.

In 2014, Elisabeth Subrin, an American filmmaker and visual artist, created a blog about Schneider called Who Cares About Actresses? The blog grew into a documentary re-enactment and is now being developed as a feature-length film. This uncomfortable short version shows that not much has changed in the past 40 years in terms of what the industry expects from women on and off screen. In order to avoid becoming a collection of post-feminist theses, Subrin stays faithful to Schneider’s words (though she is played by three different actresses) and to the imagery of the time – the short was shot on 16mm film.