This year’s winner of the Cannes Film Festival, an honest portrayal of lesbian love that has astounded with its explicit sex scenes.
At 15, Adele doesn’t question it: girls go out with boys. Nevertheless, her relationship with an older boy has failed. Then one day in the street, she glimpses a girl with a shock of blue hair, Emma, an art student. First engaging in a debate on philosophy and art, Sartre and Marley, Emma gradually ushers her into the world of genuine desire. All at once, Adèle begins to discover and lose herself in this new experience, an experience that will bring her into conflict with herself and her surroundings.
»I had nothing militant to say about homosexuality. I didn’t try to define it, and at no point during the process of making of the film did I say to myself: »Yes, but these are two women…« I felt rather that I was telling the story of a couple. I didn’t see why I should talk specifically about homosexuality, especially since the best way would be – if I had to have a discourse on the subject –to film it like any other love story, with all the beauty that this involves. /…/ Once the film was completed I thought: »This is going to do Tunisian youth some good.« A revolution isn’t complete unless it’s also a sexual revolution.«
- Abdellatif Kechiche
Abdellatif Kechiche
Born in 1960 in Tunis (Tunisia). At the age of six Kechiche immigrated with his family to France and grew up in Nice. He first worked as a theatre and screen actor and asserted himself in theatrical adaptations of works by Gabriel García Lorca and Edouard Manet. As an actor he was featured in several film productions in the 1980s. In 2000 Kechiche made his debut in film direction with the drama Blame It on Voltaire, and won international acclaim in 2007 with The Secret of the Grain.