Babette Mangolte is a French cinematographer, film director, and photographer who has lived and worked in the United States since 1970.
Her move to New York was prompted by a disillusionment with the French film industry's male dominated climate, and an interest in experimental works by American filmmakers such as Jonas Mekas and Stan Brakhage.
In the 1970s she began documenting the performance works of notable choreographers such as Trisha Brown, Lucinda Childs, David Gordon, and Yvonne Rainer.
[2] Mangolte credits Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera (1929) as the film that made her decide to become a cinematographer.
But Utopia and joie de vivre were at the core of Man with a Movie Camera and I was unafraid.She is known for her experimental film-making, which is influenced by the French New Wave and Structural film.