A REAL YOUNG GIRL / 36 FILLETTE

ABOUT THE FILMS:

A REAL YOUNG GIRL, 1976, Dir. Catherine Breillat, 94 Min, Janus Films, France

In French with English subtitles. 

Filmed in 1976 but not released until 2000, A REAL YOUNG GIRL is Catherine Breillat’s taboo-busting directorial debut and one of the boldest explorations of female sexuality ever committed to celluloid. In adapting her own novel, Breillat unflinchingly depicts the dark desires of Alice (Charlotte Alexandra), a rural adolescent whose uninhibited sexual experimentation troubles her parents (Rita Maiden and Bruno Balp) and augurs doom for her first lover (Hiram Keller). Originally withheld from theaters due to censorship concerns, Girl proved itself to be not only ahead of its time but also an audacious trial run for Breillat’s core strategies and themes, including the connection between transgressive fantasy and sober reality.

FORMAT: DCP

36 FILLETTE, 1988, Dir. Catherine Breillat, 89 Min, Janus Films, France

In French with English subtitles. 

After a nine-year absence from the director’s chair, Catherine Breillat returned with 36 FILLETTE, having lost none of her power to push both boundaries and buttons. Delphine Zentout plays Lili, a precocious fourteen-year-old girl on a seaside family vacation. Drawn to a bitter middle-aged man (Étienne Chicot), Lili longs to lose her virginity and initiates a contest of wills in which she discovers herself more mature than, but still rattled by the equivocations of, her chauvinistic counterpart. Fueled by an extraordinary performance by then-sixteen-year-old Zentout, and featuring a scene-stealing Jean-Pierre Léaud as Lili’s brief confidant, 36 FILLETTE showcases Breillat as an incisive chronicler of the subtle evolutions of teenage desire.

FORMAT: DCP