Jane Birkin, best known as an actress and pop icon of the 60s, can now add director to her list of accomplishments. Boxes, her first feature film, is a bittersweet chronicle of a woman in the midst of a crisis. Birkin plays Anna, who has just moved into a new house in Brittany, full of packing cartons, each of which is a Pandora’s box of memories. At a stage in her life when time is rushing forward at a dizzying pace, Anna tries to draw breath, to confront her past, visualise herself in the future and, perhaps, believe in love one more time.
Birkin recalls: ‘About ten years ago, I began writing about a woman of 45-50 years old . . . the panic, the mystery, the fears of a specific age . . . Of what use will she be? She who from the age of 19 was able to give children to the men she loved . . . Who will love you with all this baggage, this past history? Or were you just loved for that?’ Birkin has gathered together a stellar cast: John Hurt, Geraldine Chaplin, as well as her two daughters, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Lou Doillon.