In The Young Girls of Rochefort (follow up to The Umbrellas of Cherbourg), Darrieux, in her first collaboration with Demy, plays Yvonne, a coffee shop owner and single mother of twin sisters Delphine and Solange (real-life sisters Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac) who run a music and dance school.

Unfolding over a weekend, this is another port town musical about love, missed connections and second chances. A melancholic and spectacular Cinemascope celebration of the classical Hollywood musical, with a lush score by Michel Legrand. Blazingly fanciful and bursting with energy, parts of Rochefort were painted in primary colours especially for the film. Darrieux does her own singing, wonderfully, and Gene Kelly even plays a visiting American and does his own choreography! MPR

Presented in association with the French Embassy in Ireland and the Institut Français.

Screening as part of the IFI French Film Festival, November 17 – 28.

Listen to the IFI Podcast on this year’s Danielle Darrieux retrospective here.