Shown at Cinefrance two years ago, Marion Vernoux’s Reines d’un Jour is an expansive and populist portrayal of the fragmented lives of a group of Parisiens. Over the course of one eventful day, Vernoux focuses on a handful of characters as they play out their private dramas of seduction, adultery, pregnancy, divorce and abandonment. The film doesn’t shy away from portraying women’s faults, but even the characters most questionable behaviour is sympathetically incorporated into a warm and attractive comedy of manners. With a superb cast including Jane Birkin, Karin Viard, Sergi Lopez and Victor Lanoux, Vernoux has described the film as a ‘collage of our most intimate miseries, the ones that make us laugh when we look back atthem but at the time bring out compassion.’ That mix of laughter and empathy is the key to the film’s success.