If The L Word was written in 2014, filtered through the satirical lens of Girls (replete with dancing to Icona Pop‘s “I Love It” in a club) and set in Québec, you’d have Féminin/Féminin. Written and directed by Chloé Robichaud and produced for Lez Spread The Word (a web portal dedicated to lesbians), the webseries figures as a type of docu-dramatic comedy, straddling both documentary and fiction, and delves into the lives of six 20-something friends-lesbian, bisexual, and, yes, even straight-as they “live and love” in Montreal.
Speaking to La Presse, filmmaker Robichaud made it clear that she wanted to avoid stereotypes and clichés about lesbians, but at the same time create a different representation of lesbian life that was about positivity rather than depressing cesspools or wells of loneliness. Each episode, according to Huffington Post: Québec, will focus on a particular character and her backstory-aka “emotional baggage”-much like reflective vignettes of The L Word or even the more recent Orange is the New Black.
The pilot introduces us to the six friends, with the storyline converging on the character of Leah, played by the beautiful Noémie Yelle, whose trepidation about falling in love reveals itself in moments of humorous, albeit slightly neurotic, rambling. The heartbroken Leah, of course, tries-but fails gloriously-to play the heartbreaker.
Leah is not Shane-thank fucking Canada!
The pilot episode of Féminin/Féminin, which you can watch in full (and with subtitles!), below, has been released on Vimeo as a part of Lez Spread The Word’s fundraising campaign to finance the remainder of the series, which will total eight episodes and begin airing in June.
