April in Paris French and Francophone Film Festival – HAPPENING

Director: Audrey Diwan, based on the memoir by author Annie Ernaud.

2021, France, 140min., R

Language: French with English subtitles

Cast: Anamaria Vartolomei, Kacey Mottet-Klein, Sandrine Bonnaire, Pio Marmaï

 

“It suits them to think I’m a slut,” says gifted literature student Anne (Anamaria Vartolomei, in a star-making performance) of the puritanical bourgeoise girls in her Angoulême college dorm. In 1963, Anne finds little help from other students or doctors on helping her end a pregnancy that would crush her dream of surpassing her working class background. Disturbing, (mostly) beautiful to look at, and above all real, this film is based on the memoir of Annie Ernaud a Nobel Prize winner in Literature. “Diwan shows you a woman who, in choosing to live her life, risks becoming a criminal and dares to be free.” – Manohla Dargis, New York Times. Discussion following the film with Blase Provitola, Program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality and Language and Culture Studies, Trinity College.