Audrey Diwan’s planned English language directing debut, the erotic tale Emmanuelle starring Lea Seydoux, has buyers buzzing as much as any Cannes Market package being shopped this week on the Croisette.
But her last film Happening (which didn’t make the cut as France’s choice for Best Foreign Language Film, though many felt it would have won) might have the most lasting impact.
The film is just released in the U.S. smack in the middle of revelations that the Supreme Court plans to overturn Roe V Wade.When Audrey Diwan’s film Happening (L’événement) was passed over by France for Oscar submission in favor of Julia Ducournau’s Titane, it was no great surprise to Diwan.“It was such a hard choice for them to make,” she said. “We both have movies that are not very easy topics regarding the Academy.”While Titane had won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, Diwan was BAFTA-nominated and won Venice’s Golden Lion with Happening.
But Diwan’s film pushed the envelope to a place the Academy has historically swerved. Happening is a graphic, red-raw observation of a young woman, Anne, played by Anamaria Vartolomei, who undergoes an illegal abortion — a subject as contentious as ever in the U.S.
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