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A Film by CATHERINE BREILLAT
showing at Broadway Cinematheque from 24 January, 2002

Running time : 93 minutes category III
Produced by JEAN-FRANCOIS LEPETIT
Written & directed by CATHERINE BREILLAT
Starring Anais Reboux Roxane Mesquida Librero De Rienzo Arsinee Khanjian

TIME magazine - 10 best films of the year 2001

Chicago Int'l Film Festival - winner of Gold Hugo Best Film

Berlin - In competition - winner of Manfred Salzbeger Award

….it is yet another Breillat film that is impossible to ignore. - DEREK MALCOLM

…the film has lost an appeal to the Ontario Film Review Board. Given that distributors have chosen not to make the cuts requested, the decision effectively bans the film from screening in the province's theatres. The scenes under dispute include full frontal nudity of adolescent females, particularly a central episode where a 13 year old girl watches her older sister engaged in a sex with a man….and "a fairly brutal rape scene. - www.screendaily.com

Possibly the most intense 83 minutes currently available…. - The Village Voice

…it is one of the most artful, complex and sibling rivalry ever committed to celluloid. - Washington post

SYNOPSIS

Anais is 12 and bears the weight of the world on her shoulders. Her body is both the citadel for her pain and a fortress. Huddled up safely or forgotten by others, she is an observer.

It's summertime, by the sea, family holidays. Holiday love affair. This is the apprenticeship of first love. Anais experiences it by proxy. She watches her older sister, Elena, whom she both loves and hates. Elena is fifteen and devilishly beautiful. Neither more futile,nor more stupid than her younger sister, she cannot understand that she is merely an object of desire. And, as such, she can only be taken. Or had. Indeed, this is the subject : a girl's loss of virginity. And, that summer, it opens a door to tragedy.

A French & Italian co-production
FLACH FILMS - CB FILMS - ARTE FRANCE CINEMA
IMMAGINE & CINEMA - URANIA PICTURES
With the participation of Canal+ and the Centre National de la Cinematographie

Director - Catherine Breillat

Following the publication of her first novel, L'homme facile, in 1968, a libertine novel (banned to readers under the age of 18) that caused a sensation through the boldness of its subject and the crudeness of its vocabulary, Catherine Breillat has continued to work as a writer, filmmaker and screenwriter

She directed her first film, Une vraie jeune fille, in 1976, based on her own novel Le Soupirail (1974). A first film of a great uniqueness, shot with very limited means and in the first person, tackling the issue of the representation of sex on screen frankly and without affection. A sensual, violent, angry and personal point of view of the fear of a teenager discovering her body and the abyss of sex. A free, innovative and experimental film close to the US underground school. In 1979, she directed Tapage nocturne, based on her novel of the same name. A crude film, of an intense, moon-like beauty, a sexual film with a series of cutting-edge scenes on carnal relationships, a tale of love and desire in their raw state, the story of the implacable and destructive passion of a young woman, Solange, played by Dominique Laffin, to whom Catherine Breillat gave her best role ever. The film was banned to anyone under 18 and its failure in theatres distanced the filmmaker from film sets. She would have to wait eight years, expending relentless energy and willpower before being able to shoot another film, in 1987, 36 Fillette, having first to write a novel of the subject to convince the members of the advance box-office grant committee who were panicked by the audacity of the subject: the hard-core sexual quest of a 14-year-old girl, her search for a man, fuelled by her obsession with losing her virginity. A gruelling and sumptuous film in which the two main actors, Delphine Zentout (Lili, stubborn and distraught) and Etienne Chicot (very physical as a slightly ridiculous macho) are remarkable. In 1991, she directed Sale comme un ange in which she tackled the thriller genre. Catherine Breillat brilliantly shows this dark and seedy world making the film a pitiless, cruel and lucid acid test on the question of carnal desire, on the brutality of desire even. The story of a cold and dull puritanical woman, Barbara (Lio, excellent) who is transformed by the desire of a hard and worn-out man, the cop, Georges Deblache (Claude Brasseur, dogged and aged). Desire, pleasure and the inherent guilt sublimate this woman, leading her to an almost metaphysical self-abandonment. There's the extraordinary moment of the "couch scene" when the camera seeks out the expressions, gestures and hesitations on the couple's faces... A miraculous shot that records the moment of physical abandon of the body and soul of a woman to the desire of a man, a woman who nonetheless gives nothing away and clings fiercely to her freedom.

1996 saw the release of Parfait amour, a great romantic film and a fatal moment of cinema. A rigorous work that films a specific period: that of love and falling out of love. Catherine Breillat films love and death at work in a condensed version of life where the confrontation of desires and the differences in their nature lead Frederique (Isabelle Renauld, sensual and harsh, dominant) and Chris (Francis Renaud, immature, a gambler and a show-off) towards a tragic end, as if it were necessary to pay for wanting a love stronger than sex.

For several years, the director (who greatly admires Nagisa Oshima's film In the Realm of the Senses) had dreamed of making a film that would tackle the representation of physical love full on. This was done in a masterly manner with Romance, a "white work" in which Marie (Caroline Ducey, sublime as a white/dark angel) throws herself desperately body and soul into the sensual and mystical quest for physical and romantic love. A radical, ample, icy and burning film that showed Catherine Breillat to be a major filmmaker.

FILMOGRAPHY

Interview with Catherine Breillat

Where do the subject and characters of "a ma soeur" come from?

For some years, I had had a news item in my mind. What had struck me as much as the crime itself was the way in which the press had related it. They were clearly attempting to give it a moral meaning to understand and accept it. I felt that such stories should be told differently. Then, one day , by a hotel swimming pol, I observed the following scene : a chubby adolescent girl was moving back and forth across the pool, talking to herself as if speaking words of love to imaginary boys. Her family and her older sister were there too. I started imaging a little girl like her in my news item.

Strangely, I had never made a film dealing with the bond that exist between 2 sisters, something that I myself have known through my own sister. I wanted to explore the total complicity that can co-exist alongside genuine ferocity. It became the fundamental subject of the film. The 2 sisters share their lives; the rest of the world barely exists and doesn't enter into their relationship. The holiday affair is an obstacle to this demanding relationship that they have.

In this film, you have also attempted to tell a story of the "first time". How does A ma soeur ! fit in with your reflection on sexuality and its apprenticeship ?

The film also deals with the betrayal of romantic seduction. Elena is more romantic than her sister. She is seeking romantic love, which is normal at her age. Moreover, while Anais pretends not to be jealous, she'd nonetheless like to be in her shoes. There again, I don't think there's an apprenticeship. Experience proves that we make the same mistakes time and again, even if we occasionally do it with full knowledge of the facts. Elena doesn't believe what the boy tells her simply because she is fifteen and naive but because all she can do is believe it! The words that Elena takes to be promises only have their truth at that moment, in order to serve the boy's opportunistic attitude. This doesn't necessarily mean that they are lies and that's why it's so easy to believe them. He himself is sincere, even if his behaviour disproves what he says.

Isn't it hard to make young actors perform situations that they are likely to experience in real life? How to you manage to retain the fictional aspect ?

The film is inevitably affected by the human situations on the set. The most surprising thing is that Roxane and Anais really acted like sisters. The scene of their helpless laughter on the bed reflects what was really happening between them off camera: they truly had that kind of relationship without necessarily being sisters and despite their age difference. There again, films always generate odd behaviour… At first, I was worried that they wouldn't get on, that they would be jealous of each other. But I think that they developed this amazing complicity in order to find some protection for themselves in relation to the film. It was a little like a refuge for them. There again, if Anais had been left out of it more, her character would have been entirely different. For some scenes, the shooting conditions weren't easy. For example, they had to perform in swimsuits when the temperature was 4 degrees, bathe in very cold water: things that you can only do for a film! But, in my opinion, that's peculiar to the cinema: you do things for a film that you'd never do in real life. And, even though this is painful and hard at times, I believe it is also exalting. Moreover, I have noticed that when an actor is confronted with something difficult to do, it's the thing he does with the most ease! That's what's so exciting in this business.

As Elena discovers the male body, Anais withdraws into herself, into her plumpness, in a form of self eroticism…

Yes, because deep down, Anais is convinced that she is the better of the two. There's always a rivalry between sisters and Anais fights back with the weapons at her disposal. But, deep down, she exists more than her sister does. Elena's personality has already been slightly distorted by the idea of being a young girl of her age and her time. Because of her desire to please, she isn't completely herself. She is beautiful, she is loved, she is fulfilled: but, deep down, this psychological comfort prevents her from finding herself. She simply has to conform to the norm that she corresponds to. Anais resists better. She absorbs the world while her sister, on the contrary, is absorbed. Moreover, Anais is very comfortable with her body, feels at ease. Hers is not an autistic, self-destructive form of obesity but an obesity that is made to conquer the world. I find her body very beautiful; it's a baby's body yet, at the same time, it is very erotic. The problem was that her body had changed between casting and the end of the shoot. I didn't want her to be too developed with too much of a bosom: but, in the end, when I saw her in her swimsuit, I realised that she truly had a "forbidden body", a blend of a little girl's body and, at the same time, an incredible sexual opulence.

At some points in the film, the two sisters seem to act like a single character...

I viewed them as a "soul with two bodies". This is the syndrome of sisters who have trouble finding their own identity. The one feels what the other does. In a way, she lives it just as much and it becomes part of her experience. They are not separated, even if the older sister tries to break away; she is always dependent on the way the other sees her. It's a "fusional" and almost "confusional" relationship: moreover, in the real world, adults often mix up the first names of brothers and sisters. It's a cursed love because one takes the place of the other, as when the mother slaps Anais instead of Elena.

Moreover, the worlds of the parents and the children never communicate.

For these two sisters, their father is their first disappointing male. He can only take care of his daughters on a material level. He has no opinion of them, he doesn't even try to understand them and yet he believes that he takes care of them. No communication is possible with his children, or with his wife. For him, only the image counts, the signs of happiness: the house, the holidays, the family. The parents simply follow an idea of what they believe their duty to be. Although the mother may punish the girls by interrupting their holiday, she doesn't know how to react, deep down. On a sexual level, I believe that one can't wield any authority and that it's stupid to make guilt so important. Moreover, the parents probably didn't behave any better in their youth and even in their adulthood they have perhaps been just as irresponsible. I liked the idea that the film should descend towards crime and horror even, because of this error of judgement.

Were the songs that Anais sings written for the film ?

No, they're songs that I wrote as an adolescent. I originally wanted her to sing a song by Laura Betti. As a girl, I had been marked by her extremely provocative positions as an actress and a singer. I didn't find the song I wanted but I came across the INA interview that you see in the film. So, I thought that Anais could sing the crow song that I had written when I was twelve or thirteen. It had been inspired by Francois Villon's La ballade des pendus which has something very childlike and naive in its darkness, while remaining a outstanding piece of work. I also needed a dash of tragedy. Originally, we were going to shoot in Sicily. The scene on the beach took place on Etna. The volcano provided a magical, dark, shadowy element. But the wild coastline that we shot on doesn't leave such an intense impression as a volcano. I felt that these songs would bring in a tragic and sombre note through their obsession with death that I believe is inherent in adolescence. Anais is also trying to attract attention, for example, in the scene on the beach when Elena is behind a dune with the boy. At that point, Anais broods in a very romantic way; she has the attitude of a pre-suicidal child who says, "I may be dying because no one pays any attention to me." This romanticising of death is, I think, a certain idea of life. The idea you have during adolescence. Deep down, it's a matter of destroying the child within you. The problem is that you can easily destroy the child within you without necessarily becoming an adult! (laughter)

Despite the subject matter, the film, although fairly explicit, is less "detailed" than Romance.

The truth doesn't necessarily lie in what you see. The image is a false witness. It's always the meaning and impression given off by the whole film that makes you believe in what you see and feel that it's important. Moreover, I didn't want to cut myself off from a younger audience. The film's crudity is very relative and I believe that it can even be instructive in some ways. There's also a lightness, a "sitcom" aspect that I was aiming for. Indeed, the dialogue is transparent and very easy to understand. The whole romantic dialogue is a sitcom dialogue. Moreover, when you're in love, you always speak a little like this and the only difference is that you believe it and that what you say involves you body and soul. But there's also a comic effect, such as when they kiss while talking about what their fathers do. When you're young, you always ask this kind of question when in fact you mean something else. This also exists in adult relationships, even if it remains outrageously adolescent in the film. Girls who set off looking for boys like that exist. And often these adolescents don't even realise that they're seducing each other when they meet and that's what's funny!

The film abandons the portrait of adolescence to move towards the crime. How did you get the idea of this long sequence of the motorway journey ?

I have always been fascinated by these car journeys, on the road to the holidays, with the children in the back, lugged around like bodies who don't have their word to say, with the parents smoking in the front. The scenery interested me too but only to the extent that it reflects a state of mind. This motorway is approached with anxiety and there is even a sort of "horizontal vertigo". I wanted to describe this hallucinogenic and possibly psychotic aspect of the road and, at the same time, its hostility. The inside of a car is a confined world where people are close and, at the same, a long distance from each other. The girls weep and the mother, in the front, wants to see nothing, hear nothing and simply grips her wheel. She is entirely caught up in driving and cannot communicate. She doesn't even give the impression of driving; she is "driven" by the road.

Did you have a vision of the film's whole structure from the outset ?

No, I needed to combine my sources of inspiration. But, in general, I discover my film in making it. That's why I find it very hard to talk about the film's screenplay before shooting. I refuse to bring to life just what I have written. If everything has been expressed, there's no need to film it. The screenplay simply contains markers: I don't understand what I want to say until I finish the film. That's why I cannot censor myself. I'm afraid before shooting the scenes but I have to push that danger aside and ignore this fear, even if it is genuine. The fear of failure simply leads to failure. You think that you can cling to experience and skill but these are things that can play tricks on you. A film must be fuelled by desire. One must not lose sight of the fact that there's something mysterious about film creation: you go from a craftsman-like technique - the camera, the set, the lights - and at times end up with something magical. Fundamentally, a film set is a sacred place where you enter into a relationship with something very metaphysical. Silence and concentration attain almost religious levels. A director isn't someone who gives orders but who puts people under the influence. But there's no method to it, there are no rules: you don't know how you do it, you even wonder what immaterial power makes you the filmmaker. This mystery is what amazes me the most

CASTS

Anais Reboux (Anais, younger sister)

I met Catherine Breillat while she was casting the film. In the end, there were three of us left and Catherine had us read the screenplay in its entirety. Even if I found a few elements of myself in it, the character wasn't really me. Anais is a little girl who doesn't really want to live because her life is rather sinister. I think that she's jealous of her sister, even if, deep down, she is more intelligent and more mature than Elena. She clearly understands what is happening to her sister who is fooled by the boy. She is in the position of an observer, which helps her understand more quickly. But she needs to have her life transformed. I think that what happens in the film will, in spite of everything, bring her out of her shell. During the shoot, everyone was very kind to me. They always tried to be close to me, to reassure me. It was a wonderful experience, I got on well with the other actors and Roxane and I have become friends. I don't know if I'll make other films, I don't plan to force things. I'm still considering it. The hardest part for me was the scene when I get slapped. I had to start crying and I couldn't do it! In the end, I called my mother, who pretended that my little dog had run off. I knew it wasn't true but I acted as if it was and it worked.

Roxanne Mesquida (Elena, elder sister)

The screenplay for " A ma soeur ! " made a very strong impression on me. I read it during a free period at school and I was very unsettled by the story. I walked around school after in a very odd state... I could tell that there was something very interesting to perform in it. I had seen " Romance " and I felt that the film never became vulgar and, on the contrary, managed to show something very pure. " A ma soeur ! " is a lot " softer " even if there are some fairly crude moments. My meeting with Catherine Breillat went very well, we immediately got on very well. On the set, she managed to inspire us to reveal surprising emotions. She would incite the actors to continually go further and we were overjoyed by that. Anais and I also had a great deal of complicity, which helped us a lot. As for the character of Elena, I must say that the part wasn't an easy one. She could come across as being a superficial and naive girl who gets fooled by a boy. She had to be given a certain depth. There were also some difficult things to perform that I had never done for a film. For the long love scene, Catherine took her time to make me comfortable. And, in the end, I have wonderful memories of the scene, my best day of shooting.

Libero De Rienzo (Fernando)

When Catherine Breillat asked me to be in the film, I had just about given up acting. I had seen " Romance ", which had caused quite a stir in Italy, " Tapage nocturne " and " 36 fillette ". On reading the screenplay for " A ma soeur ! ", I felt that it was the best screenplay I had ever read. I immediately told Catherine who didn't believe me! I came to France and I took intensive French lessons for a month to be able to say my lines properly. The character of Fernando embodies the cruelty of romantic relationships when they're not equitable. He's a Casanova on holiday, seeking above all an experience of physical love and is of course incapable of keeping the promises he makes. But, as an actor, I couldn't judge this character without risking losing him. I had to understand him differently than from a moral angle, as if, deep down, he represented the cruelty of nature within the context of a holiday affair. The work with Catherine and the whole crew went well and I soon felt part of the family. The nude scenes were no problem for me. The film deals with intimate, highly private moments but I wasn't worried because I knew I wasn't in a porn film. My personal relationship with Catherine was very good and there were a lot of experienced people on the crew. All this made the shoot a fascinating and very pleasant experience. biography 2000 " A ma soeur ! " by Catherine Breillat 1999 " La via degli angeli " by Pupi Avati 1998 " Piu leggero non basta " by B.Lodoli Also a stage actor, he has taken part in a number of festivals (Festival della nuova drammaturgia italiana, Sentieri D'ascolto)

ROMAIN GOUPIL (the father) I knew the world of Catherine Breillat well and we had already met. When she called me, I immediately gave my agreement before reading the screenplay, without trying to figure out what she had in mind in choosing me for the part. I told her that if she chose me as an actor, she did so at her own risk! This indifferent father, concerned by his own affairs, is a fairly unsympathetic character. I would make fun of Catherine, saying that she had only chosen me because Rocco Siffredi had disappointed her! (laughter) On the set, I tried to be at her complete disposal, to be totally available by forgetting that I too am a director. Even so, I was fairly worried about my own acting skills. Catherine is very demanding in her work, she is looking for something very precise which isn't always easy to express but she searches continually. She cannot always provide the explanation, you simply have to move through the scene for things to become clear little by little. I learnt a great deal about an actor's work by finding myself on the other side of the camera, waiting for the least gesture or look from the directors. Moreover, the actors soon form a family. Here, totally naturally, the family of the film formed off camera too. But the film also awoke the fragility within us all. That's why we were very close on the set. biography

After working as an assistant director for Nelly Kaplan, Jacques Deray, Coluche, Chantal Akerman, Roman Polanski and Jean-Luc Godard among others, he directed several short films and, in 1982, presented his first feature, Mourir a trente ans, for which he was awarded the Camera d'Or at the Cannes Festival and the Cesar for Best First Film in 1983. His most recent film, A Mort la Mort, based on his novel of the same name, dates from 1998.

ARSINEE KHANJIAN (the mother) I first met Catherine Breillat in Toronto, when we had a long chat. I had seen a number of her films and I liked the way in which she tackled the prickly subject of sexuality without taboos or anxiety. When she called me a few months later, I had just seen " Romance " which had finally been released in Canada, amid all kinds of rumours. All the same, the film went way beyond the sensationalism that people tried to confine it to and it contained an approach to sex that was done with intelligence and original, well-thought-out ideas. When she asked me to be in " A ma soeur ! ", I wasn't at all scared because I had no ethical problems with her style of cinema. Catherine didn't give me any indications about my character outside the frame of the film. It was only during the scenes and after shooting, that I realised who my character was. She's a woman who submits to the pressures of a self-centred husband, and she is very vulnerable, probably too vulnerable to have any authority over her daughters. During the long drive back, on the motorway, we realise that she is totally helpless, that she's incapable of acting in a responsible manner. This refusal to understand her daughter could even mean that she was subjected to similar pressures in her youth. On the set, Catherine concentrates on the essentials and doesn't attempt to go into detail. She truly works with her actors; she doesn't retreat behind the camera but remains physically very close to us. She is very attentive because she is looking for something precise without really knowing what it is yet. She asked us to do some difficult things, such as the slap scene that we had to redo many times. Or perform in swimsuits at very low temperatures! But we were all ready to do it for the film. Catherine demands a great deal of truth from her actors. She makes no compromises because she knows that compromises are always visible on the screen. biography Actress and muse of the director Atom Egoyan in Next of kin, Exotica… or more recently Felicia's Journey (part of the 1999 Cannes Official Selection), Arsinee Khanjian has also worked with Olivier Assayas in Irma Vep and Fin aout, debut septembre, and appeared in Michael Hanecke's film Code inconnu selected in competition for the 2000 Cannes Festival. She also performs on stage in Europe and Canada.

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