L’Une Chante, L’Autre Pas - The abortion song (Agnès Varda, 1977)

The struggle for abortion rights was a central issue for French feminists of the seventies, and it has a prominent role in One Sings, the Other Doesn’t. In this scene, Pauline travels to Amsterdam for her own abortion; Varda was involved in a group that organised such trips for French women. It’s in Amsterdam that Pauline discovers her vocation as a feminist troubadour and changes her name to “Pomme5“); inserted into the film here is an endearingly dotty music clip of Pomme on an Amsterdam barge singing a tribute to the women on her abortion trip.