A Girl's Story
In this drama based on Annie Ernaux’s book, a writer returns to her hometown, where painful memories of a summer spent as a camp counsellor resurface.
French director Judith Godrèche’s film A Girl’s Story is based on Annie Ernaux’s novel Mémoire de fille. “Mémoire” doesn’t actually translate to “a story”, but is closer to a study or memoir. The girl in question is Ernaux herself and, characteristically for the author, the work is an examination of her own past, recalling the feelings of a young Annie from long ago.
The film’s narrative takes on an additional layer because the director’s own daughter, Tess Barthelémy, plays Annie. As a very young actress herself, Godrèche was subjected to abuse in a way that echoes what 17-year-old Annie experiences in this deeply affecting and sensitive story. Godrèche therefore asks her daughter to enact in fiction something she herself has painful personal experience of.
The film portrays its young protagonist’s summer as an assistant at a children’s camp in 1958 with sophisticated cruelty and precision. Annie is socially inexperienced when she arrives at the camp, and the other assistants test her in numerous ways. In the aftermath of a cold and calculated seduction, she also begins to imagine herself in a relationship with one of the assistants. The film powerfully conveys Annie’s profound bewilderment in the face of life.
Jaana Semeri (translated by Mira Liimatainen)
Screenings
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Maxim 2Sat 19.9. at 16.10–18.07117 min, 1/4
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Kino Engel 2Sun 20.9. at 18.00–19.57117 min, 2/4
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Gilda 2Thu 24.9. at 20.00–21.57117 min, 3/4
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Cinema OrionSat 26.9. at 13.30–15.27117 min, 4/4