The family drama by Italian-French director Valeria Bruni Tedeschi finds inspiration in the filmmaker’s own life history.
Louise, an actress in her early forties who’s taken a self-imposed retirement from the screen, begins a romantic relationship with Nathan, several years her junior, who opens up new horizons for her. Despite nearing the end of Louise’s childbearing age, the couple decide for artificial insemination, yet the feeling of uncertainty remains. Louise is also coming to terms with her brother Ludovic’s incurable illness and the desperate straits her family is in. Louise descends from a wealthy Italian industrial family that have found themselves at a fiscal crossroads, and can no longer manage the upkeep on their sprawling estate in Piedmont. This is a story of a family that is disintegrating, an era that is ending, and a love that is beginning.
»She wants a child although she really is too old; he is not sure about his profession although he has a lot of work and does well. But what is powerful in their love story, I believe, is something much more universal: they are like two people who are going to drown and so they hold on tight to one another for dear life. And, mysteriously, they make it.«
- Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi
Born in 1964 in Torino (Italy), Bruni Tedeschi graduated in acting from the Amandiers Theatre School in Nanterre. In 1997 she acquired a taste for screenwriting. In 2003, she wrote and directed her first film, It’s Easier for a Camel. Ever since, she has written and directed all of her films, in them also playing the lead role.