Parlons Cinema! TAFFF 2024 | A FAMILY - Q&A with Director/Author Christine Angot

Parlons Cinema! TAFFF 2024 | Q&A with director/author Christine Angot for A Family Moderated by Writer/Professor Laure Murat Directed by: Christine Angot Written by: Christine Angot Produced by: Bertrand Faivre (Le Bureau Films), Alice Girard (Rectangle Productions), France 2 Cinéma Cinematography: Caroline Champetier Film Editing: Pauline Gaillard International Sales: The Bureau Sales Christine Angot doesn’t pull any punches in her very raw first film, A Family. The family she holds under a microscope is her own — a family that has been the subject of several of her equally raw, often autobiographical novels, including Incest, the work that catapulted her literary career. Christine was first raped by her father at the age of 13. The horror of that trauma, which happened repeatedly and continued for many years, shaped her life and her work, and has clearly haunted her ever since. In this film, she holds her family accountable. Individually interviewing several members of that family — and not always willingly — Christine continues to mine a wound that is so deep, and has filled her with such rage, in a desperate attempt to process it the only way she knows how: by doggedly probing the power dynamics at play and questioning everyone implicated. At times austere and almost difficult to witness, that brutal exercise evolves into an extremely moving, surprisingly healing journey. Christine Angot is a French novelist, journalist, and playwright. She published her first novel, Vu du Ciel, in 1990, but it was Incest (1999) that propelled her to notoriety in the world of contemporary French literature. Other novels include Les Désaxés and Une partie du Cœur, both awarded the France Culture Prize in 2005; Rendez-Vous, winner of the 2006 Prix de Flore; and Une semaine de vacances (2012). Film director Catherine Corsini adapted Angot’s Un amour impossible (2015) for her feature film, An Impossible Love (2018). Angot co-wrote two screenplays with director Claire Denis: Let the Sunshine In (2017) and Both Sides of the Blade (2022), which was based on her novel Un tournant de la vie (2018). She was awarded the 2021 Prix Médicis for her novel Voyage dans l’Est, and has been a member of the Goncourt Academy since 2023. A Family, her first film, debuted in the Encounters section of this year’s Berlin Film Festival. The American French Film Festival (TAFFF) is presented by the Franco-American Cultural Fund, a unique partnership of the Directors Guild of America, the Motion Pictures Association, the SACEM, and the Writers Guild of America West. More info at www.tafff.org