La Petite Lili

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Product Description

{Nominated Palme d’Or, Claude Miller– Cannes Film Festival 2003}

{Winner! Silver Hugo Best Female Performance, Ludivine Sagnier– Chicago Int’l Film Festival 2003}

{Winner! Best Supporting Actress, and Most Promising Actress, Julie Depardieu– César Awards, France 2004}

Ludivine Sagnier stars as Lili, the love and muse of an idealistic young filmmaker in this modern adaptation of Chekov’s classic play The Seagull.

The story revolves around Mado, a movie-star past her prime who owns an elegant chateau in the serene French countryside. Mado’s lover Brice is a successful director who continues to cast Mado in his films. Her son Julien, an aspiring filmmaker, despises his “sell-out” mother, but at the same time yearns for her approval. Lili, Julien’s girlfriend, is intent on escaping the lowly life of a poor country girl and dreams of stardom. When Julien screens his new DV art-film starring Lili, the delicate peace in their house begins to unravel.

An excellent ensemble cast of actors including Ludivine Sagnier (Swimming Pool), the striking young actor Robinson Stévenin, the up and coming Julie Depardieu (Les Destineés), Nicole Garcia (Alias Betty), Jean-Pierre Marielle (Tous les Matins du Monde) and Bernard Giraudeau (Ridicule).

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Inspired by The Seagull, Claude Miller’s La Petite Lili takes place in present day Brittany. While Chekhov’s play was set in a theatrical milieu, longtime Truffaut associate Miller (Alias Betty) sets his film in a cinematic one (a là Day For Night). The title character is an aspiring actress (Ludivine Sagnier, Swimming Pool), who is seeing experimental filmmaker Julien (Robertson Stévenin). She would prefer to be working with an established commercial director like Brice (Bernard Giraudeau, Ridicule), who is involved with his leading lady–Julien’s mother, Mado (Nicole Garcia). By the conclusion, Lili will have achieved her goal, but at what cost? Well, unlike The Seagull, La Petite Lili isn’t a tragedy, so no one character will make out too badly. And as in François Ozon’s Water Drops on Burning Rocks, itself based on a play (by Rainer Werner Fassbinder), Sagnier and Giraudeau make for a strangely compelling screen couple. –Kathleen C. Fennessy

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