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Catherine Breillat

Catherine BREILLAT (1948, France) is an actress, novelist, screenwriter, and filmmaker based in Paris. She is also a professor of auteur cinema at the European Graduate School. In 1967, she graduated in acting from Yves Furet’s Studio d’Entraînement de l’Acteur in Paris together with her sister, actress Marie-Hélène Breillat. At the age of 19, she wrote her first novel L’homme facile in 1968. She made her first film Une vraie jeune fille in 1976, which was re-released after the success of Romance (1999). She became famous for her works that revolve around sexuality, gender troubles, and sibling rivalry. In 1999, IFFR dedicated a retrospective to her work. Her films have been screened at various film festivals internationally, including Venice Film Festival and Toronto Film Festival.

Filmography

(selection) Une vraie jeune fille/A Real Young Girl (1976), Tapage nocturne/Nocturnal Uproar (1981), 36 fillette (1987), Sale comme une ange/Dirty Like An Angel (1991), À propos de Nice, la suite (1995, doc, segment Aux Niçois qui mal y pensent), Parfait amour/Perfect Love (1996), Romance (1999), A ma soeur!/Fat Girl (2001), Brève traversée/Brief Crossing (2001), Sex is Comedy (2002), Anatomie de l’enfer/Anatomy of Hell (2004), Un vieille maîtresse/The Last Mistress (2007), Barbe Bleue/Bluebeard (2009), La belle endormie/The Sleeping Beauty (2010, TV), Abuse of Weakness (2013)

More info: Wikipedia, Catherine Breillat

Catherine Breillat at IFFR

  • Sex is Comedy

    The Making of ‘Fat Girl’. Feature about making a love/sex scene by Breillat, an expert at it. Serious self-reflection, with the necessary self-mockery

    • main programme features

  • Anatomie de l’enfer

    With her characteristically unflinching gaze and courage, Breillat takes her exploration of sexuality, desire and the relationship between men and wom

    • main programme features

  • Fat Girl

    In Fat Girl, Breillat (Romance, 1999) also investigates the frontiers of female psychology and sexuality: this time, a fat sister and a beautiful sist

    • main programme features

  • Brève traversée

    Mature woman meets young man on the ferry to England: they seduce each other. Painstaking description of sexual desire in a style typical of Breillat.

    • main programme features

  • La belle endormie

    Visual, intellectual and entertaining film version of The Sleeping Beauty. In a journey through time and space, Breillat has an eye for detail as she

    • Spectrum

  • Romance

    Breillat shows that a woman’s desires can also be ambivalent. Controversial film with real sex scenes.

    • Catherine Breillat retro

  • Tapage Nocturne

    An unpolished film with a dreamy beauty, Breillat again working from her own story of a young woman who falls prey to an all-consuming desire, analyse

    • Catherine Breillat retro

  • Parfait amour

    Breillat’s most commercial and romantic film, but nevertheless a searing exploration of love and hate, love and death. An older, attractive bourgeois

    • Catherine Breillat retro

  • Une vraie jeune fille

    Breillat’s precocious and risk-taking début, typically frank and direct. In a sensual, intense first-person style she describes how a young girl disco

    • Catherine Breillat retro

  • Aux Niçois qui mal y pensent

    Inspired by Vigo’s classic A propos de Nice, Breillat’s camera sees what it is not allowed to see, a study in intolerance.

    • Catherine Breillat retro