Double Feature
Fat Girl
Twelve-year-old Anaïs is fat. Her sister, fifteen-year-old Elena, is a beauty. While the girls are on vacation with their parents, Anaïs tags along as Elena explores the dreary seaside town. Elena meets Fernando, an Italian law student; he seduces her with promises of love, and the ever watchful Anaïs bears witness to the corruption of her sister’s innocence. Fat Girl is not only a portrayal of female adolescent sexuality and the complicated bond between siblings but also a shocking assertion by the always controversial Catherine Breillat that violent oppression exists at the core of male-female relations. (Janus Films)
- Director
- Catherine Breillat
- Writer
- Catherine Breillat
- Starring
- Anaïs Reboux, Roxane Mesquida, Libero De Rienzo, Arsinée Khanjian
- Year
- 2001
- Country
- France/Italy
- Format
- English subtitled 35mm
- Running Time
- 86 minutes
36 Fillette
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. (Janus Films)
- Director
- Catherine Breillat
- Writer
- Written by Catherine Breillat based on the novel 36 Fillette by Catherine Breillat, co-screenwriter Roger Salloch
- Starring
- Delphine Zentout, Étienne Chicot, Olivier Parnière, Jean-Pierre Léaud
- Year
- 1988
- Country
- France
- Format
- English subtitled 35mm
- Running Time
- 89 minutes