AMOUR DE FEMME

Jeanne, 35, is a successful osteopath in Paris, offering healing to others through massage and touch. Married, with a son of seven years, Jeanne expertly and willingly goes through the motions of a happy marriage, though her faraway manner belies this suggestion of satisfaction. But something unsettled brews from within. Attending a party with her husband, she meets a professional dancer named Marie, with whom she forms an immediate bond. Recalling times when she herself used to dance, Jeanne resolves to take lessons from Marie. Through dance, she begins to reacquaint herself with her own body (even as she has cared for the bodies of others), and with the expression of inner passion, which has been lacking in her marriage. When Marie reveals her sexual attraction to Jeanne, almost immediately Jeanne realizes that she feels the same way. Then, it’s only a brief matter of time before she falls in love – shocking a close friend in whom she confides, angering her husband as his suspicions of an affair grow stronger, and overwhelming Jeanne herself with waves of passion that lift her ever higher… and carry her farther and farther away from the life she has known.

In a tour-de-force of direction, Sylvie Verheyde tells the compelling story of two passionate women weighing the undeniability of their love against forces that would keep them apart. Presented with depth and subtlety, the film glimmers with its director’s considerable storytelling prowess, and especially with the raw immediacy and passion of its leading performances. Helene Fillieres, as Jeanne, is a formidable screen presence: her stormy beauty simultaneously suggesting the terror with which she at first cowers from love’s promise, then lunges at it hungrily, epitomizing Jeanne’s greatest question in life: who is this woman that I am becoming? She is aptly paired with Raffaëla Anderson (of the controversial French feature BAISE MOI), whose Marie is the very picture of courageous self-determination, whether romancing Jeanne in quiet conversation, or wildly dancing with a commanding ferocity. Though the film sidesteps easy solutions to the challenges these women face, it is exhilarating for the force and conviction with which it depicts love’s disregard for convention and timidness, in a relentless flow toward its own truth.

Starring Raffaëla Anderson of BAISE MOI and Anthony Delon, son of Alain Delon.

Directed by Sylvie Verheyde
French with English subtitles
89 min.



"Rife with sexual tension and intimate, realistic dialogue, Amour de Femme is a classic character-driven tale of self-discovery set in beautifully atmospheric Paris. Directed with haunting beauty by Sylvie Verheyde, the film boldly advocates faith in life’s possibilities when it comes to following your heart."
OUTFEST LOS ANGELES LESBIAN & GAY FILM FESTIVAL

"Seductive... a sexy, stormy love story."
Bruce Walcer, FRAMELINE SAN FRANCISCO LESBIAN & GAY FILM FESTIVAL





Frameline 2003 San Francisco GLFF
2005 Outfest Los Angeles GLFF
2005 Tampa GLFF