La Naissance des pieuvres caused a buzz at this year’s Cannes Film Festival as its director, 27-year old Celine Sciamma, had never even directed a short before turning the screenplay she wrote for school into a feature film. Marie is a petite 15-year-old girl from a Parisian suburb who looks underdeveloped when compared to her classmates and the girls on the synchronised swimming team she is so eager to join. Her best friend Anne is Marie’s physical opposite and is gutsy in ways Marie can only dream of. Anne and Marie’s relationship changes dramatically when Marie starts hanging out with Floriane, the stunning blonde with the model-like body who is the swim team’s captain. Floriane decides to use Marie as an excuse to sneak out for lovemaking sessions with her current boyfriend, forging, if not a friendship, at least a sense of uneasy complicity. Sciamma’s revealing and uncomfortable look into the world of teenage girls has a raw edginess that led some French critics to describe her as a young Catherine Breillat.
Director Celine Sciamma will be present at this screening and will give a Q&A afterwards.