Sex, power, and rebellion are at the heart of the feminist cinema of Nelly Kaplan, the unsung iconoclast who passed away in November 2020. Born in Argentina to a Russian Jewish family, Kaplan relocated to Paris at age seventeen, where she became an assistant to legendary director Abel Gance before directing her first (and still best-known) feature, the caustic antipatriarchal revenge comedy A VERY CURIOUS GIRL. Transgressive, satirical, and surreal, Kaplan’s films are defined by their proactive female protagonists—complex, empowered women who, in Kaplan’s world, are always in charge.