RAISING LADY LIBERTY

A film by Gedeon Programmes made for PBS et ARTE
Directed by Julien Johan
Running Time: 55 mins

This film screening is organized in partnership with the Association of Friends of Musée d’Orsay (AFMO), with the participation of French in Motion.

Visionary artist and skilled self-promoter, Bartholdi pioneered inventive fundraising campaigns in France and the United States, an early form of crowdfunding, to finance the Statue of Liberty. The film traces his transatlantic journeys, the statue’s gradual creation, and the powerful symbolism it carried at its inauguration in October 1886. Alongside Bartholdi, it highlights key figures such as Édouard de Laboulaye, who conceived the idea of the gift, and Joseph Pulitzer, whose press campaign mobilized public support to complete the funding.

Blending cinematic drama with original footage filmed in historic locations across France and the United States, the film grounds its storytelling in rigorous scholarship, drawing on archival and previously unseen documents to illuminate the political turmoil shaping both nations during the statue’s long creation.

Followed by a discussion with Robert Snyder, Historian of New York City at Rutgers and Edward Berenson, historian at NYU and author of “The Statue of Liberty: A Transatlantic Story”. The discussion will be moderated by Stephanie Valloatto, Head of the NY Chapter – French in Motion.

GUEST SPEAKERS

Robert Snyder is professor emeritus of American Studies and Journalism at Rutgers University,  has devoted his career to sharing history with a broad public to better understand the past and present. He has written six books on New York City, including The latest is When the City Stopped: Stories from New York’s Essential Workers, published by Cornell University Press, which was awarded the LaGuardia Book Prize. He is a former Fulbright lecturer in American Studies and from 2019 to 2025 was Manhattan Borough Historian.

Edward (Ed) Berenson is professor of history and chair of the history department at NYU. Before coming to NYU in 1998, he taught for many years at UCLA. Berenson is the author or editor of eight books on 19th and 20th century French, British, and U.S. history.  Two of his books, Heroes of Empire and The Statue of Liberty have been translated into French.  He has published op-eds in the New York Times and in leading French papers, and he comments for the French media about American politics and public life.
Ed holds a B.A. from Princeton University, a diploma in French language and civilization from the Sorbonne, and a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester. In 1999, he received the American Historical Association’s Eugene Asher Distinguished Teaching Award, and in 2006 he was decorated by French president Jacques Chirac as “Chevalier dans l’Ordre de Mérite.”

Stéphanie Valloatto is a French award-winning screenwriter, director and editor. She has written and directed a dozen documentaries for television. Her first feature-length documentary, Cartoonists: Foot Soldiers of Democracy, was selected for the Cannes Film Festival (2014) and screened at 70 international film festivals.  Stéphanie is currently working on her second feature-length documentary Food Family shot in the United States and France, and is developing several other projects.