L’événement
«I floated around this event of my life for many years» tells Annie Ernaux from whose autobiographical novel L’événement is based the movie with the same title that is the second out of three French movies competing for the Golden Lion at Venezia 78. The event Ernaux talks about is an abortion she decided to do when she was 23. It was 1963 and abortion was still llegal in France and the word itself was forbidden. The award winning writer of La Place, Les année and Une femme travels in her memory talking about rights denied to women, relationship with the male world and the dramatic reality of illegal abortion. Ernaux confesses that still nowadays «reading the story of a miscarriage in a novel plunges me in a state of shock without images and thoughts, words instantly become a violent feeling». French-Lebanese director and screenwriter Audrey Diwan brings this story on the big screen. This is her second feature after Mais vous êtes fous (2019), a family drama about cocaine addiction. Diwan wrote many movies directed by Cédric Jimenez, such as French Connection (2014), HHhH (2017) and also BAC Nord about the policemen/vigilantes in Marseille that was presented in Cannes 2021 and that arouse many controversies in France. L’événement has been defined by Venice Film Festival Artistic Director Alberto Barbera «a very tough movie, even uncomfortable but with a great idea of cinema». L’événement is also the encounter of two writers, because Diwan is a novelist herself, she won Prix René-Fallet 2008 for La fabrication d’un mensonge. The star of L’événement is Anamaria Vartolomei already seen in My Little Princess (2011) and L’échange des princesses (2017).
Emanuele Bucci
Scheda tecnica
L’événement (id.)
France, 2021. Directed by Audrey Diwan. With Anamaria Vartolomei, Kacey Mottet-Klein, Luàna Bajrami, Louise Orry Diquero, Louise Chevillotte, Pio Marmaï, Sandrine Bonnaire, Anna Mouglalis, Leonor Oberson, Fabrizio Rongione. Lenght 1 h 40’.
