Audrey Diwan, French director, crowned at the Venice Film Festival – The HuffPost

via Associated Press

CULTURE – French director Audrey Diwan, 41, received the Lion d’Or this Saturday 11 September at the Venice Film Festival for “The Event”, a raw, intimate and feminist film about a young woman who aborted clandestinely.

The film, adapted from the eponymous autobiographical story by novelist Annie Ernaux, takes place in France in the 1960s, before abortion was legalized. It shows the journey of a young student who becomes pregnant, played by the Franco-Romanian Anamaria Vartolomei.

“It’s sad to be certain that we will always be in the news while working on the subject” of abortion and its ban, Audrey Diwan told AFP before her victory.

Anne, the main character played by 22-year-old actress Anamaria Vartolome, is a carefree student in France in the early 1960s, where clandestine abortion is punished by prison for those who perform it as well as for those who help. It was not decriminalized until 1975.

Anne discovers that she is pregnant, but the young woman, from a working-class background, wishes to continue her studies of letters, the only chance to build a future outside her native village. Doctors, friends, partner, teacher: she won’t find anyone to help her.

Framed as close as possible to the character, with a long sequence shot during which Anne tries to have an abortion, “L’Événement” (Annie Ernaux’s second adaptation this year after “Simple Passion”) can be trying, wanting to be at most close to reality and the ordeal endured by women who had to abort clandestinely, risking their lives.

“My idea was not to look at Anne but to try to be her, to enter her body,” the director told AFP.

A first big role for Anamaria Vartolomei

The film is carried by Anamaria Vartolomei, brunette with light eyes and a diaphanous complexion, who finds there her first major role.

“I really put myself in his shoes. I said to myself ‘OK, we are both 21 years old, what is it for a young girl’ ”to have an abortion, she told AFP. “I am fortunate to have acquired rights which are still fragile. I defended her with as much interest as possible, because it’s terrible, she has to choose between her studies, her career or her life. It is unfair!”

Born in Romania in Bacau (northeast) Anamaria saw her parents leave for France at the age of two. The father works in the building and when she is six years old her parents earn enough money to bring her with them, to Issy-les-Moulineaux, in the Parisian suburbs (Hauts-de-Seine).

It was at school that she discovered the theater before registering for a casting for a film by Eva Ionesco, “My Little Princess”, where she would play at the age of 10. Twelve years later, “I want to take on roles that are increasingly rich, complicated, nuanced, jarring, ambiguous. I feel ready ”.

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