La fille de nulle part

Always balancing between parody and gravity, The Girl from Nowhere plays with elements from French cinema. Femme fatale and amour fou dance together with didactic monologues about God and the unknown.
This low-budget Golden Leopard winner is set in the Paris apartment of the director, who casts himself as Michel, a retired maths teacher and widower preparing for the end. Before it finally arrives, however, he takes into his house the young Dora, who was physically abused in front of his door by an ex-lover. While she recovers, strange things start to happen in the house.
Jean-Claude Brisseau, Filmmaker in Focus at IFFR in 2003, constructed his story around the need for myths and illusions and their influence on our experience. Here and there, he mixes fiction and reality flamboyantly, to great comic effect. The power of illusions is finally confirmed when Michel’s tragic fate and the passing of time become tangible.