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Catherine Breillat
Catherine Breillat
	Breillat in 2023
Born	13 July 1948 (age 76); Bressuire, Deux-Sèvres, France
Occupation(s)	Film director, screenwriter, novelist

Catherine Breillat (French: [katʁin bʁɛja]; born 13 July 1948) is a French filmmaker, novelist and professor of auteur cinema at the European Graduate School. In the film business for over 40 years, Breillat chooses to normalize previously taboo subjects in cinema. Taking advantage of the medium of cinema, Breillat juxtaposes different perspectives to highlight irony found in society.^[1]

Life and career

Breillat was born in Bressuire, Deux-Sèvres, but grew up in Niort. She decided to become a writer and director at the age of twelve after watching Ingmar Bergman's Sawdust and Tinsel, believing she had found her "fictional body" in Harriet Andersson's character, Anna.^[2]

She started her career after studying acting at Yves Furet's "Studio d'Entraînement de l'Acteur" in Paris together with her sister, actress Marie-Hélène Breillat (born 2 June 1947) in 1967. Her novel, l'Homme facile (A Man for the Asking), was published when she was 17. The French government banned it for readers under 18. A film based on the novel was made shortly after the publication of the book, and received an R rating. The producer went bankrupt and the distributor Artedis blocked commercial release of the film for twenty years.^[3]

Breillat is known for films focusing on sexuality,^[4] intimacy, gender conflict, and sibling rivalry. Breillat has been the subject of controversy for her explicit depictions of sexuality and violence. She cast the porn actor Rocco Siffredi in her films Romance (Romance X, 1999) and Anatomie de l'enfer (Anatomy of Hell, 2004). Her novels have been best-sellers.

Her work has been associated with the cinéma du corps/cinema of the body genre.^[5] In an interview with Senses of Cinema, she described David Cronenberg as another filmmaker she considers to have a similar approach to sexuality in film.^[6]

Though Breillat spends most of her time behind the camera, she has acted in a handful of movies. She made her film debut in Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris (1972) as Mouchette, a dressmaker, alongside her sister Marie-Hélène Breillat.

In 2004, Breillat suffered a intracerebral hemorrhage, causing a stroke that paralyzed her left side.^[7] After five months of hospitalization and a slow rehabilitation, she gradually returned to work, producing Une vieille maîtresse (The Last Mistress) in 2007. This film was one of three French films officially selected for the Cannes Film Festival of that year.

In 2007, Breillat met notorious con man Christophe Rocancourt, and offered him a leading role in a movie that she was planning to make, based on her own novel Bad Love, and starring Naomi Campbell.^[8] Soon after, she gave him €25,000 to write a screenplay titled La vie amoureuse de Christophe Rocancourt (The Love Life of Christophe Rocancourt), and over the next year and a half, gave him loans totalling an additional €678,000.^[9] In 2009, a book written by Breillat was published, in which she alleged that Rocancourt had taken advantage of her diminished mental capacity, as she was still recovering from her stroke.^[10] The book is titled Abus de faiblesse, a French legal term usually translated as "abuse of weakness".^[11] In 2012, Rocancourt was convicted of abus de faiblesse for taking Breillat's money, and sentenced to prison.^[9]

In September 2010, Breillat's second fairy-tale based film, La belle endormie (Sleeping Beauty), opened in the Orizzonti sidebar in the 67th Venice International Film Festival.^[12]

As of 2011^[update], although Breillat had moved on to other projects, she still hoped to film Bad Love, but had not yet been able to find financing to do so.^[13] However, a film adaptation of her book Abus de faiblesse, directed by Breillat and starring Isabelle Huppert, began production in 2012, and was screened at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival.^[14]^[15]

It has been noted that "Breillat remains committed to the long take, particularly during scenes of sexual negotiation, a technique that showcases her performers' virtuosity as well as emphasizes the political and philosophical elements of sex. In both Fat Girl and Romance, for example, key sex scenes possess shots lasting over seven minutes."^[16]

In 2018, Breillat made controversial remarks on Asia Argento, who starred in 2007's The Last Mistress, calling Argento a "traitor" for accusing Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault.^[17]

Common themes in Breillat's films

Through film, Breillat attempts to redefine the female narrative in cinema by showing female characters who undergo similar experiences as their male counterparts. Many of Breillat's films explore the transition between girlhood and adulthood. The females of her films attempt to escape their adolescence by seeking individuality.^[18] There is an unsaid silence in society for girls to hide their sexuality and desires unless directly confronted about them. Breillat offers a platform to discuss female pleasure and sexual responsibility by exposing social and sexual conflicts in her films' themes.^[1]

Allegations of sexual misconduct

In August 2024 the actress Caroline Ducey, in an interview with the Nouvel Obs newsmagazine, accused Breillat of directing male actors to perform unsimulated sex acts upon her against her will during the filming of Romance.^[19] The allegations were described in more detail in Ducey's memoir, La Prédation (nom féminin).^[20] According to Ducey, Breillat demanded that her coactor, François Berléand, digitally penetrate her on camera; Ducey and Berléand worked together successfully to simulate the scene without Breillat's knowledge. Ducey stated that actors Rocco Siffredi and Reza Habouhossein later engaged in on-camera penetrative acts with her at Breillat's insistence, despite her plea to the director "not to force me to do things I didn't want to."

Breillat denied the allegations, accusing Ducey of being "delusional" and announcing her intention to file suit against the actress for defamation.^[21]

Works

Filmography

Year	English title	Original title	Notes
1975	Catherine & Co.	Catherine et Compagnie	Writer
1976	A Real Young Girl	Une Vraie Jeune Fille	Based on Breillat's novel Le Soupirail. Banned after initial premiere, until 1999.
1979	Nocturnal Uproar	Tapage nocturne
1987		Milan noir	Writer
1988	Virgin / Junior Size 36	36 Fillette	Based on her novel
1991	Dirty Like an Angel	Sale comme un ange
1993	Couples et amants	Couples et amants	Co-writer
1996	Perfect Love	Parfait amour!
1999	Romance	Romance X
2001	Fat Girl	À ma sœur!
2001	Brief Crossing	Brève traversée
2002	Sex Is Comedy	Sex Is Comedy
2004	Anatomy of Hell	Anatomie de l'enfer	Based on her novel Pornocratie
2007	The Last Mistress	Une vieille maîtresse	Based on the novel by Jules Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly (1851). Entered into the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.^[22]
2009	Bluebeard	Barbe bleue	Based on the tale by Charles Perrault
2010	Sleeping Beauty	La belle endormie	Based on Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault
2013	Abuse of Weakness	Abus de faiblesse	Based on her book of the same title
2023	Last Summer	L'Été dernier	Based on the 2019 Danish film Queen of Hearts